THE NATURALIST AND COLLECTOR 
I 2 
Peruvian Mummies. 
W HILE at the University of 
Nebraska in the fall of ’92 
I had the pleasure of assist¬ 
ing- in unpacking and ex¬ 
amining five Peruvian mummies. 
These were found in Peru, and were 
donated to the university by the Hon. 
Patrick Egan, U.S. Minister to Chili. 
The mummies were found buried in 
the sand, surrounded by their various 
posessions, etc. From their appear¬ 
ance and arrangement it was believed 
that the group represented a family of 
the Incas. 
The group consisted of a man, evi¬ 
dently a chief, who was dead when 
buried; a woman and three small 
children, who had evidently been alive 
when buried. All the bodies were in a 
sitting position; knees under chin; 
hands clasped around the ankles or 
shins. The bodies were all wrapped in 
several folds of rough native cloth, 
tied with the coarse cordage. 
The face of the woman was smeared 
with a brown substance; evidently 
chocolate(?) which she had been eating- 
before the funeral rites occured. 
The bodies had been buried in dry 
sand containing quite a percentage of 
Sodium Nitrate. This, with the rapid 
drying- due to the climate, had pre¬ 
served the bodies with but little decay, 
although a portion of the nose of the 
woman had disapeared; and the mum¬ 
mies give off a slig-htly offensive odor, 
similar to that from imperfectly pre¬ 
served hides. The drying was so com¬ 
plete as to cause the flesh, viscera and 
muscles to shrink to nearly nothing; in 
fact the mummies look like skeletons 
covered with yellowish brown 
parchment. 
With the mummies were found pipes, 
rough modern vessels, pottery, cordage 
and native cloth. Much of the native 
cloth looked like burlap except that it 
was made of cotton; the texture was 
the same. As to the character of the 
pottery I can say nothing, as I am not 
an expert in that line. 
— WillC. Hall. 
The Great Harrier Reef of Australia 
extends along- the coast ol Queensland 
for more than 1100 miles, beginning* 
at Torres Straits and reaching to Lady 
Elliott Island. Its distance from the 
coast varies between nine and ninety 
miles. It is a vast wall rising from 
the bed of the ocean to the surface, 
with numerous breaches, of which 
twenty-two are large enough to per¬ 
mit of the passage of ships of consid¬ 
erable size. If Illustration mentions a 
few of the most common of the coral 
animals: “The symphillies, capable of 
reaching several feet in diameter, are 
covered with complicate meanders; 
the goniasters resemble human crania; 
the pocillipores are shaped like a cauli¬ 
flower; the fungias recall hug-e stipe¬ 
less toadstools, with gills borne upon 
the upper surface; the lophoseres are 
arranged in vertical leaves; and the 
madrepores resemble ramified and 
tufted bushes.” These forms exist in 
colonies, each of myriads of individuals, 
which are continously destroyed at 
the base but constantly renewed at the 
summit. With certain algae they form 
most of the reef, yet there is in addi¬ 
tion an extraordinarily rich and varied 
fauna “There are here sea anemones 
of gigantic size, gelatinous alcyonaries, 
odd mollusks, transparent crustaceans, 
fantastic holothrians. sea urchins with 
huge spines, fishes with curiously mot¬ 
tled sides, etc. All this little world 
lives, moves and reproduces itself and 
dies in always leaving a part of itself 
upon the reef to the building* up and 
solidification of which it contributes to 
a slight degree.” 
