on some Egyptian Mummies. 193 
instance, who produced a wretched figure of a painted mask, 
without any character whatever, engraved in Beger's Thesaur. 
Brandenb. T. III. p. 402, as one of the most characteristic repre- 
sentations of the form of the ancient Egyptians ; and who, as 
well as several others, will have this form to be similar to that 
of the Chinese ; an assertion which, after having had oppor- 
tunities to compare twenty-one living Chinese at Amsterdam, 
and having since seen in London abundance of ancient Egyp- 
tian monuments, especially in the British Museum, and the 
collections of Mr. Townley, Mr. Knight, and the Marquis 
of Landsdown. has ever appeared to me incomprehensible. 
Adopting, as I think it conformable to nature, five races of 
the human species, viz. 1. the Caucasian ; 2. the Mongolian; 
3. the Malay ; 4. the Ethiopian ; 5. the American ; I think 
the Egyptians will find their place between the Caucasian and 
the Ethiopian, but that they differ from none more than from 
the Mongolian, to which the Chinese belong. 
Thus far concerning the bodies of the Egyptians prepared 
into mummies. I shall conclude with some observations on the 
probable meaning and destination of the diminutive mummies^ 
which have given rise to the present inquiry. 
They certainly are not what they have long, I believe, uni- 
versally been taken for,* namely, mummies of small children 
and embryos. Some of them are the real mummies of Ibises, 
such as the one of Dr. Lettsom, and one of the two in the 
Hamiltonian collection, in the British Museum, which had 
by decay been so far laid open as to allow me plainly to distin- 
guish in it the bill of an Ibis, and other bones of a bird. 
* See, for example, M. Thr. Brunnich’s Dyrenes Historic og Dyre-Samlingen, 
udi Universitetets Natur -Theater. T. L p. 2. 
C c 
MDCCXCIV. 
