304 
Dr. Granville’s essay on 
ration, was used for the purpose. The presence of lime may 
be accounted for by supposing, that in a preliminary opera- 
tion, the cuticle, which, as I before stated, could not be 
detected in any part of the body, except the head and the 
extremity of the toes, and has been found invariably wanting 
in all other mummies, was removed by means of that alka- 
line substance. This circumstance again goes far to show 
that the Egyptian embalmers were acquainted with an 
important physiological truth, namely, that in order to pro- 
mote the absorption of liquid substances, particularly of the 
tanning liquor and saline solution, applied to the external 
surface of the body, the cuticle must first be removed. 
The presence of saline substances in mummies has been 
noticed by more than one modern writer, especially by Mons. 
Royer, already mentioned in the course of this essay ; but 
the conjecture as to the origin of the salts themselves, has not 
been hinted at before. 
A fourth fact, deserving of our attention, is the presence of 
a resino-bituminous substance between some of the folds of 
the remaining portions of the peritoneal membrane. On col- 
lecting this substance, and instituting some experiments upon 
it, I ascertained that the bitumen was mixed with a greater 
proportion of wax, so as to have rendered the mixture per- 
fectly plastic. To have penetrated thus far, and to have 
lodged between closely adhering membraneous folds, this mix- 
ture must either have been injected quite warm into the cavity 
of the abdomen, or the body itself must have been plunged 
into a vessel containing a liquefied mixture of wax and bitumen, 
and there kept for some hours or days, over a gentle fire. 
The latter operation, not noticed by the older historians, has 
