coffins. The great principle of embalming is the exclusion of the
external air, but much is attributable to antiseptics. One of the
principal ingredients in the mummy balsam is colocynth, or bitter apple,
powdered. The same drug is employed in Upper Egypt for destroying vermin
in clothes' presses, and store-rooms; and ostrich feathers sent to Lower
Egypt are sprinkled with it. A recent traveller found in the head of a
mummy, of a superior kind, a balsam, in colour and transparency like a
pink topaz. It burned with a beautiful clear flame, and emitted a very
fragrant odour, in which cinnamon predominated. In the heart of one of
the mummies he found about three drams of pure nitre; the heart being
entire, this must have been injected through the blood-vessels. Mummy
powder was formerly in use all over Europe as a medicine, and is still
employed as such among the Arabs, who mix it with butter, and esteem it
a sovereign remedy for internal and external ulcers.

_Sulphur._

It is well known that sulphur which has been recently fused, does not
immediately recover its former properties; but no one suspected that it
required whole months, and even a longer period, fully to restore
them.--_From the French_.

_Sympathetic Ink._

Write on paper with a weak solution of nitrate of mercury, and the
characters will become black, when held to the fire.

* * * * *