on some Egyptian Mummies . tjg 
only in the dimensions, this being lqt. inches long, and n| in 
circumference at the breast. 
The proprietor was likewise kind enough to suffer me to 
open it, which I did at his house on the 25th of January. 
But much as it resembled Dr. Garthshore's mummy ex- 
ternal! y, it was found very different as to its contents, there 
being in it a great number of detached bones of the skeleton 
of an Ibis , which were only here and there indued with rosin. 
This striking difference, no doubt, rather excited than satis- 
fied my curiosity; and having hereupon found in the British 
Museum no less than three such diminutive mummies, which 
were now to me become enigmatical, (viz. two in the Ha- 
miltonian collection of antiquities, both contained in the 
same kind of square wooden coffins, clinched with iron nails, 
and the third in the Sloanian collection), I felt an irresistible 
impulse to apply to the President of the Royal Society, as one 
of the curators of the Museum, for his interference towards 
obtaining permission to open one of these three, in order to 
have an opportunity for some further comparison. 
The result of this application was, that at the very next 
meeting of the curators leave was granted me, in the most li- 
beral manner, not only to open one of these little mummies, 
but also to choose among the four large ones that are in that 
noble repository, the one that should appear to me the most 
likely to afford some material information on the subject. 
I chose among the small ones the Sloanian, as it seemed 
to me to differ more than the two in the Hamiltonian col- 
lection, from either that of Dr. Garthshore or Dr. Lett- 
som. The four large mummies resembled in the main the one 
deposited in the academical museum of Gottingen, which I 
A a 2 
