234 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. vn. 
going to the Royal Society, and talked to R. with- 
out mercy ; but R., whose thoughts and attention 
were so entirely given up to Mrs. Gamp and 
Jonas, could only ansv/er at random. As soon as 
my father was gone, we laughed over Mrs. Gamp 
till bedtime.’ 
‘ May 6. — R. helped to draw up, and gave 
a finish to the first Gwydyr House report on 
Health of Towns.’ 
‘ \ ‘]th. — R. to Mr. Pickersgill after breakfast. 
They spent the rest of the morning together, as 
R. wanted to see the dwarf. General Tom Thumb. 
Dr. Hamel here at eleven. Went into the 
museum with him, and he poked about in his 
usual way. He is going to be the bearer of R.’s 
dinornis to St. Petersburg, much to his delight.’ 
Among the curious applications frequently 
made to Professor Owen, there was none, perhaps, 
more strange than a letter he received from a 
firm of surgeons near Bath on May 17. After 
apologies for troubling him they write ; — 
[1844.] 
‘We have been for a few days actively 
engaged embalming the remains of the late 
William Beckford, Esq., of Fonthill Abbey, a 
gentleman of family and fortune. [Here follows 
a rough sketch of the process, which consisted in 
injecting the vessels with an antiseptic, treating 
the viscera by Dr. Baillie’s process and covering 
