derstood in the western world some ages since, than ever it was in Egypt. This mummy which was dug up at Auvergne, was an amazing instance of their skill. As some peasants were digging in a field near Rion, within about twenty-six paces of the highway, between that and the river Artier, they discovered a tomb, that was about a foot and a half beneath the surface. It was composed only of two stones; one of which formed the body of the sepulchre, and the other the cover.

This tomb was of free stone, seven feet and a half long, three feet and a half broad, and about three feet high. It was of rude workmanship; the cover had been polished, but was without figure or inscription; within this tomb was placed a leaden coffin, 4 feet 7 inches long, 14 inches broad, and 15 high. It was oblong like a box, equally broad at both ends, and covered with a lid that fitted on like a snuff-box, without a hinge. Within this coffin was a mummy, in the most perfect preservation. The internal sides of the coffin were filled with an aromatic substance, mingled with clay. Round the mummy was wrapped a coarse cloth; under this were two shirts or shrouds, of the most exquisite texture; beneath these a bandage, which covered all parts of the body, like an infant in swaddling clothes; under this general bandage there was another, which went particularly round the extremities, the hands and legs, the head was covered with two caps; the feet and hands were without any particular bandages; and the whole body was covered with an aromatic substance an inch thick. When these were removed, and the body exposed naked to view, nothing could be more astonishing than the exact resemblance it bore to a body that had been dead a day or two before. It appeared well proportioned, except the head was rather large, and the feet small. The skin had all the pliancy, and colour of a body lately dead; the visage, however, was of a brownish hue. The belly yielded to the touch all the joints were flexible, except those of the legs and feet; the fingers stretched forth of themselves when bent inwards. The nails still continued perfect; and all the marks of the joints, both in the fingers, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet, remained perfectly visible. The bones of the arms and legs, were soft and pliant; those of the skull preserved their rigidity; the hair which only covered the back of the head, was of a chesnut colour, and about two inches long. The pericranium at top was separated from the skull, by an incision, in order to the introducing aromatics in the place of the brain where they were found mixed with clay. The teeth, the tongue and the ears, were all preserved in perfect form. The intestines were not taken out of the body, but remained pliant and entire, as in a fresh subject; and the breast was made to

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rise and fall like a pair of bellows. The embalming prepara tion had a very strong and pungent smell, which the body preserved for more than a month after it was exposed to the air. If one touched either the mummy, or any part of the preparation, the hands smelt of it for several hours after. This mummy having remained exposed for some months, began to suffer some mutilations. A part of the skin of the forehead was cut off; all its teeth were drawn out, and some attempts were made to pull away the tongue. It was therefore put into a glass case, and transmitted to the king's cabinet, at Paris.

There are many reasons to believe this to be the body of a person of the highest distinction; however no marks remain to assure us either of the quality of the person, or the time of his decease; there are only to be seen some irregular figures on the coffin: one of which represents a kind of star.

There were also some singular characters upon the bandages, which were totally defaced by those who had torn them. It should seem that it had remained for several ages in this state, since the first years immediately succeeding the interment, are usually those in which the body is most liable to decay.

On this remarkable subject, I beg leave to add an extract from a late author.

"I always apprehended that human bodies after death, if interred, or exposed to the air without any preparation to defend them from the attacks of it, would of necessity corrupt, become offensive and putrify. The art of embalming is very ancient, and was invented to preserve them from this inevitable consequence of death; but that they may remain unputrified for centuries, without any sort of artificial aid, I have seen so incontestably proved since my arrival at Bremen, that I imagine not the shadow of doubt can remain about it. Under the cathedral church is a vaulted apartinent, supported on pillars; it is near sixty paces long, and half as many broad. The light and air are constantly admitted into it by three windows, though it is several feet beneath the level of the ground. Here are five large oak coffers, rather than coffins, each containing a corpse. I examined them severally for near two hours. The most curious, and perfect, is that of a woman. Tradition says, she was an English countess, who dying here at Bremen, ordered her body to be placed in this vault uninterred, in the apprehension that her relations would cause it to be brought over to her native country. They say it has lain here 250 years. Though the mascular skin is totally dried in every part, yet so little are the features of the face sunk or changed, that nothing is more certain than that she was young, and even beautiful. It is a small countenance, round in its contour the cartillage of the nose and the nostrils have un

dergoue no alteration : her teeth are all firm in the sockets, buz the lips are drawn away from over them. The cheeks are shrunk in, but yet less than I ever remembered to have seen in embalmed bodies. The hair of her head is at this time more than eigh teen inches long, very thick, and so fast, that I heaved the corpse out of the coffer by it; the colour is a light brown, and I cut off a small lock, which is as fresh and glossy as that of a living person. That this lady was of a high rank seems evident from the extreme fineness of the linen which covers her body. The landlord of the inn, who was with me, said, he remembered it for 40 years past; during which time there is not the least perceptible alteration in it. In another coffer is the body of a workman who is said to have tumbled off the church, and was killed by the fall. His features evince this most forcibly. Extreme ago ny is marked in them: his mouth is wide open, and his eyelids the same; the eyes are dried up. His breast is unnaturally dis tended, and his whole frame betrays a violent death. A little child who died of the small pox is still more remarkable. The marks of the pustules, which have broken the skin on his hands and head, are very discernible; though one should suppose that a body which died of such a distemper, must contain, in a high degree, the seeds of putrefaction. The two other corpses are not less extraordinary. There are in this vault likewise turkeys, hawks, weasels, and other animals, which have been hung up here some time immemorial, some very lately, and are in the most complete preservation: the skins, bills, feathers all unaltered. The magistrates do not permit that any fresh bodies be brought here. The cause of this phenomenon is doubtless the dryness of the place where they are laid. It is in vain to seek for any other."

A repository of nearly the same kind, a late writer informs us, is at a monastery near Palermo, in Sicily. It is a long subterranean gallery, having nine inches on every side, between six and seven feet high. In each of these is a human body standing erect, in its usual apparel. The face and the hands are uncovered, and preserve their shape and natural colour, only a little browner. They are fastened to the wall by the back. Some of them are believed to have been there two or three hundred years. Suppose they could remain there forever, what would it profit their former inhabitants!

A late traveller gives a still stranger account of them. morning we went to see a celebrated convent of Capuchins, about a mile without the city of Palermo; it contains nothing very remarkable, but the burial-place, which indeed is a great curiosity. This is a vast subterraneous apartment, divided into large commodious galleries, the walls on each side of which are

hollowed into a variety of niches, as if intended for a great col lection of statues: these niches instead of statues, are all filled with dead bodies, set upright upon their legs, and fixed by the back to the inside of the nich. Their number is about three hundred; they are all dressed in the clothes they usually wore and form a most respectable and venerable assembly. The skin and muscles, by a certain preparation, become as dry and hard as a piece of stock-fish; and although many of them have been here upwards of two hundred and fifty years, yet none are reduced to skeletons; though the muscles in some are more shrunk than in others; probably because these persons have been more extenuated at the time of their death.

Here the people of Palermo pay daily visits to their deceased friends, and recall with pleasure and regret the scenes of their past life here they familiarize themselves with their future. state, and choose the company they would wish to keep in the other world. It is a common thing to make choice of their nich, and to try if their body fits it, that no alteration may be necessary after they are dead; and sometimes by way of voluntary penance, they stand for hours in these niches.

The bodies of the princes and first nobility are lodged in handsome chests or trunks, some of them richly adorned: these are not in the shape of coffins, but all of one width, and about a foot and a half, or two feet deep. The keys are kept by the nearest relation of the family, who sometimes come and drop a tear over their departed friends.

These visits must prove admirable lessons of humility; and they are not such objects of horror as one would imagine; they are said, even for ages after death, to retain a strong likeness of what they were when alive; so that as soon as you have conquered the first feelings excited by these venerable figures, you only consider this as a vast gallery of original portraits, drawn after the life, by the justest and most unprejudiced hand. It must be owned, that the colours are rather faded; and the pencil does not appear to have been the most flattering in the world: but no matter, it is the pencil of truth, and not of a mercenary, who only wants to please.

It might also be made of very considerable use to society these dumb orators could give the most pathetic lectures upor pride and vanity. Whenever a fellow began to strut, or to affect the haughty, supercilious air, he should be sent to converse with his friends in the gallery: and if their arguments did not bring him to a proper way of thinking, I would give him up as incorrigible.

A TREMENDOUS THUNDER STORM.

The following is an account of a dreadful storm of thunder, lightning and rain, which happened at Athlone, Ireland.

[Meth. Mag.--Eng.]

1. A dreadful blast of high wind, suddenly shook and stripped the guard house. 2. A terrible shower of rain, as if a whole river had fallen on the street, which being forced on by a violent wind, made a prodigious noise as it fell. 3. After the rain a dreadful and terrible clap of thunder. 4. A thick darkness ensued, that continued for half a quarter of an hour. 5. Continued lightning broke out without ceasing, so that heaven and earth seemed to be united in the flame; which was more terrible to the guards than all that happened before, and ended with three claps of dreadful thunder out of a fiery cloud from the North; which running violently through the air, stopt just above the castle. At the last of the three claps, in the twinkling of an eye, fell a wonderful great round be dy of fire, out of the clouds, directly upon the case; and in a moment the magazine blew up, which contained two hundred and sixty barrels of powder, one thousand charged band grenades: with eight hundred and ten skanes of match, which were piled over them. two hundred and twenty barrels of musket and pistol balls; great quantities of pick-axes, spades, hovels, horseshoes, and nails; all blew up into the air, and covered the whole town, and neighbouring fields: by the violence of the shock, the town gates were all blown open. The poor inhabitants, who were generally asleep whew this tragical scene began, were awaked with the different, surprising misfortones which befel them: some finding themselves buried in the ruins of their own houses; others finding their houses in a flame above their heads; others blown from their beds into the streets ; others having their brains knocked out with the fall of great stones, and breaking of hand-grenades in their houses. These stupifying disasters within doors, made most of the poor, amazed mortals, fly to the streets for shelter; where to their great astonishment, they saw the air filled with different shapes of fire, ready to fall upon their houses and heads. The great quantities. of match that was blown up, occasioning these different figures of fire, which being followed with great thunder-claps, made many of these helpless inhabitants believe that it was the Day of Judgment; who therefore for some time minded nothing but their prayers, without using any other means for the preserva