the operation of opening a dead body, taking out the intestines, and filling the space with odoriferous and dessicative drugs and spices, in order to preserve it from decay. The Egyptians excelled all other nations in this art: some bodies embalmed by them several thousand years ago remain to this day, and very perfect specimens of mummies are to be seen in many public museums. Their manner of embalming was this: With an iron scoop they extracted the brain at the nostrils, and threw in medicaments to fill up the vacuum; they also took out the entrails, and having filled the body with myrrh, cassia, and other spices (except frankincense), proper to dry up the humours, they pickled it in nitre, leaving it to soak for seventy days. The body was then wrapped up in bandages of fine linen and gums, to make it stick like glue; and so was delivered to the kindred of the deceased, entire in all its features, the very hairs of the eyelids being preserved. They used to keep the bodies of their ancestors, thus embalmed, in apartments magnificently adorned, and took great pleasure in beholding them thus preserved with comparatively little change in the form of their features. The Egyptians also embalmed the Ibis and other sacred animals; and the prices charged for embalming varied considerably according to circumstances. The highest sum was a talent, the next twenty minas, and so on, decreasing to a very small amount. The poorer class contented themselves with injecting the intestines, by means of a syringe, with a certain oily liquor extracted from the cedar. This oil was suffered to remain there a considerable time, and the body was wrapped up with nitre. The oil thus injected acted upon the intestines, so that when taken out, the intestines came away dried, and not in the least putrefied. The body was then wrapped up with more nitre; and it gradually dried up, till nothing remained except the skin, glued as it were to the bones. The process of embalming is described both by Herodotus and Diodorus. The former, who is unquestionably the better authority, says (ii. 85), "This service is performed by persons appointed to exercise the art as their business. When a dead body is brought to them, they show their patterns of mummies in wood, imitated by sculpture; and the most elaborate of these, they say, belongs to the character of one (Osiris) whose name I do not think it pious to mention on such an occasion; the second that they show is less costly; the third, the cheapest of all: and having shown these, they inquire in which way the service shall be performed; upon which the parties make their agreement, and the body is left for preparation.

The interior soft parts being removed both from the head and from the trunk, the cavities are washed with palm wine and fragrant gums, and partly filled up with myrrh and cassia and other spices; the whole is then steeped in a solution of nitre for seventy days, which is the longest time permitted; and then, having been washed, the body is rolled up with bandages of linen cloth, being first smeared with gum instead of glue. The relations, on receiving the body, procure a wooden case in a human shape, and inclose the dead body in it; and when thus inclosed, they treasure it up in an appropriate building or apartment, placing it upright against the wall. This is the most expensive mode of preparation. For those who wish to avoid expense, the process is simplified by omitting the actual removal of the interior parts, and introducing a corrosive liquid to melt them down. The nitre consumes the flesh, so that skin and bone only are left when the body is returned to the friends. The third and simplest process is merely to cleanse the body well, within and without, by means of some vegetable decoctions, and to keep it in the saline solution for the seventy days, without farther precautions." Embalming appears also to have been performed by filling the cavities of the thorax and abdomen, after the intestines were removed, with a species of bitumen, which was poured into the trunk of the body in a liquid state, through an aperture made on purpose in the side, whilst the head was treated in a similar manner. An excellent account of these several processes is given in Mr Pettigrew's work upon Mummies.