307 
Egyptian mummies. 
argillaceous earth. Now, if the embalmers used the water 
from the natron lakes, as I have laid down good grounds for 
believing, nothing is more probable, than that they also 
made use of the earthy sediment of that water which con- 
tains the salt in question, and which could be procured in 
abundance at the margin of those lakes, where it has been 
observed by the naturalists who accompanied the French ex- 
pedition into Egypt. 
As to the nature of the resin and bitumen used as ingre- 
dients in the embalming process, it is a question of com- 
paratively little interest. Nor does it matter much, whether 
aromatic vegetable substances were employed or not. In 
the mummy before us, two or three small pieces of myrrh 
in a loose state were found, and evidence is not wanting of 
both resin and bitumen, though not in their purest form, 
having been had recourse to. But their presence seems by no 
means necessary for the completion of that admirable method 
of embalming, devised and followed by the ancient Egyp- 
tians, which my inquiries have been directed to ascertain, 
and which may be summed up in a few words by saying : 
that it consisted in impregnating the body with bees wax. 
The various circumstances detailed in this essay furnish us 
with sufficient reasons for believing, that in the most per- 
fect, and, I would call them, the primitive specimens of the 
art of embalming, the progressive stages of the Egyptian 
method must have been as follows : 
A. Immediately after death the body was committed to 
the care of the embalmers, when, in the majority of cases, the' 
viscera of the abdomen, either wholly, or partially, were forth- 
with removed ; in some cases through an incision on the one 
MDCCCXXV. S s 
