A History of the Earth, and Animated Nature (Volume 2) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the first years immediately succeeding the interment, are usually those in which the body is most liable to decay. It appears also to be a much more perfect method of embalming than that of the Egyptians; as in this the flesh continues with its natural elasticity and colour, the bowels remain entire, and the joints have almost the pliancy which they had when the person was alfve. Upon the whole, it is is probable that a much less tedious preparation than that used by the Egyptians would have sufficed to keep the body from putrefaction; and that an injection of petreoleum inwardly, and a layer of as- phaltum without, would have sufficed to have' made a mummy; and it is remarkable that Auvergne, where this was found, affords these two substances in sufficient plenty. This art, therefore, might be brought to greater perfection than it has arrived at hitherto, were the art worth preserving. But mankind have long since grown wiser in this respect, and think it unnecessary to keep by them a deformed carcass, which, instead of aiding their magnificence, must only serve to mortify their pride. CHAPTER IV. OF ANIMALS. Leaving man, we now descend to the lower ranks of animated nature, and prepare to examine the life, manners, and characters of these our humble partners in the creation. But, in such a wonderful variety as is diffused around as, where shall we begin? The number of beings endued with life as well as we, seems, at first view infinite. Not only the forest, the waters, the air, teems with animals of various kinds; but almost every vegetable, every leaf, has millioQs of minute inhabitants, each of which (ills up the circle of its allotted life; and some of them are found objects of the greatest curiosity. In this seeming exuberance of animals, it is natural for ignoran...