68 
DEODORIZERS AND DISINFECTANTS. 
skeleton is now placed in the museum at Petersburgh, and 
the skin stuffed. 
In Russia there are still further illustrations of this fact of 
dead bodies being preserved by cold. During the winter 
season their slaughtered animals soon become frozen ; in 
which state they are sent to the markets, and they 
will keep as long as they remain in this condition ; so 
that a Russian market, according to the description given 
by Sir Ker Porter, is a highly interesting sight. The 
expedient adopted by the untutored Esquimaux, of burying 
the flesh of the reindeer and seal in the snow, to preserve it, 
as ascertained by Captains Parry, Franklin, and Back, is 
also further confirmative. 
The other instance is an ancient Peruvian burying place, 
thus described by Dr. Reid : 
“ At Chiu-Chiu, in the form of an extensive half-moon, 
sit men, women, and children — from 500 to 600 in number — all 
in the same attitude and gazing vacantly before them : some, 
however, are fallen down, and some partly covered with sand.” 
The common opinion is that they were buried alive here, but 
Dr. Reid believes they buried themselves; and the reasons 
he assigns for this view are: — 1st, there is no place near 
where they could have dwelt; 2d, women have infants at 
their breasts ; 3rd, the similarity of their attitude, while 
an expression of grief is still discernible on most of the 
countenances. He conjectures that they had "withdrawn 
thither in despair from the conquering Spaniards, be- 
lieving that if they died they would be removed to a 
better world towards the west ; and on this account they 
have their cooking utensils by their sides, full of maize. 
“ They still sit immoveable in the dreary desert of Atacama, 
dried like mummies by the effect of the hot winds, staring 
into the burning waste before them, for life had not departed 
when they thus sat themselves down in a semicircle ; hope 
being gone, and the invader at hand.” 
The vapour of tar, creosote, and acetic acid, are all well- 
known preservatives of organic substances. The efficiency 
of perfumes, and a few other allied compounds, so frequently 
resorted to, is more than questionable ; J,he probability being 
that they merely cover offensive smells, and hence they are 
really neither deodorizers nor disinfectants. 
