.MTA2Mg.NzE5MzY

No 1 Respecting these pretended Mummies I know nothing but what I have learned from hear say, Several Years ago between 1812 and 1814 during the war with Great Britin when most of our caves were ransacked for materials for the preparation of Saltpetre a body was discovered in one of them wrapped in a kind of fabric composed of feathers and the whole inclosed in a coarse kind of malt or Basket, this body was not properly a mummie but merely a dried cadaver - our much lamented friend the late Doct Roan saw it at the Apothecary Shop of Mr Beoford, it was then already mutilated by the visitors who carried away every piece that could be broken off. I presumed that this body was somewhat similar to those which have perished in the sandy deserts of Lybia Doct Roan mentioned to me that the body had not undergone any artificial preparation - no incisions were observed; consequently it was not embalmed as is the case with the true mummies

I doubt whether this body was of fremote antiquity any body placed in our slatpetre caves must in a few Years be brought to such a state - I have visited several of these caves in Tenne. in order to find out the causes which produced the saltpetre, being in correspondence upon that subject with Professor Reinnardt, Reinwardt? of Lyden who had visited the saltpetre caves in the East Indies and who supposed that the materials for the saltpetre were produced by the decomposition of animal matter, so abundant, according to that learned Professor, in these caves, now no animal matter of any consequence is found in our caves, even in the big bone cave which as its name seems to indicate, must have been the haunt of large animals. The fact is, that some bones of a single skeleton of the Megalonyx most of which are now is my possession, were found