The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

104 NATURAL HISTORY. CENT. VIII.
coral, save that it closeth at the top. This being issue forth. I remember Livy doth relate, that
set in water within a house, spreadeth and dis- there were found at a time two coffins of lead in
playeth strangely; and the people thereabout a tomb; whereof the one contained the body of
have a superstitious belief, that in the labour of King Numa, it being some four hundred years
women it helpeth to the easy deliverance. after his death: and the other, his books of sacred
rites and ceremonies, and the discipline of the
Experiment solitary touching the materials of glass. pontiffs; and that in the coffin that had the body,
770. The crystalline Venice glass is reported there was nothing at all to be seen, but a little
to be a mlixture in equal portions of stones brought light cinders about the sides, but in the coffin that
from Pavia by the river Ticinum, and the ashes had the books, they were found as fresh as if they
of a weed, called by the Arabs kal, which is ga- had been but newly written, being written on
thered in a desert between Alexandria and Ro- parchment, and covered over with watchcandles
setta; and is by the Egyptians used first for fuel; of wax three or four fold. By this it seemeth
and then they crush the ashes into lumps like a that the Romans in Numa's time were not so
stone, and so sell them to the Venetians for their good embalmers as the Egyptians were; which
glass-works. was the cause that the body was utterly consumed. But I find in Plutarch and others, that
Experiment solitary touching prohibition of pu- when Augustus Caesar visited the sepulchre of
trefaction, and the long conservation of bodies. Alexander the Great in Alexandria, he found
771. It is strange, and well to be noted, how the body to keep its dimension; but withal, that
long carcasses have continued uncorrupt, and in notwithstanding all the embalming, which no
their former dimensions, as appeareth in the mum- doubt was the best, the body was so tender, as
ruies of Egypt; having lasted, as is conceived, Caesar, touching but the nose of it, defaced it.
some of them, three thousand years. It is true, Which maketh me find it very strange, that the
they find means to draw forth the brains, and to Egyptian mummies should be reported to be as
take forth the entrails, which are the parts aptest hard as stone-pitch; for I find no difference but
to corrupt. But that is nothing to the wonder: one, which indeed may be very material, namely
for we see what a soft and corruptible substance that the ancient Egyptian mummies were shroudthe flesh of all the other parts of the body is. ed in a number of folds of linen, besmeared with
But it should seem, that, accordingto our observa- gums, in manner of cerecloth, which it doth
tion and axiom in our hundredth experiment, pu- not appear was practised upon the body of Alextrefaction, which we conceive to be so natural a ander.
period of bodies, is but an accident; and that
matter maketh not that haste to corruption that is Experiment solitary touching the abundance of
conceived. And therefore bodies in shining nitre in certain sea-shores.
anmber, in quicksilver, in balms, whereof we now 772. Near the castle of Caty, and by the wells
speak, in wax, in honey, in gums, and, it may of Assan, in the land of Idumea, a great part of
be, in conservatories of snow, &c., are preserved the way you would think the sea were near at
very long. It need not go for repetition, if we hand, though it be a good distance off: and it is
resume again that which we said in the aforesaid nothing but the shining of the nitre upon the sea
experiment concerning annihilation; namely, that sands, such abundance of nitre the shores there
if you provide against three causes of putrefac- do put forth.
tion, bodies will not corrupt: the first is, that the
air be excluded, for that undermineth the body, Experiment solitary touching bodies that are borne
and conspireth with the spirit of the body to dis- up by water.
solve it. The, second is, that the body adjacent 773. The Dead Sea, which vomiteth up bituand ambient be not commaterial, but merely he- men, is of that crassitude, as living bodies bound
terogeneal towards the body that is to be pre- hand and foot cast into it have been borne up, and
served; for if nothing can be received by the one, not sunk; which showeth, that all sinking into
nothing can issue from the other; such are quick- water is but an over-weight of the body put
silver and white amber, to herbs, and flies, and into the water in respect of the water; so that
such bodies. The third is, that the body to be you may make water so strong and heavy, of
preserved be not of that gross that it may corrupt quicksilver, perhaps, or the like, as may bear up
within itself, although no part of it issue into the iron: of which I see no use, but imposture. We
body adjacent: and therefore it must be rather see also, that all metals, except gold, for the same
thin and small, than of bulk. There is a fourth reason, swim upon quicksilver.
lemedy also, which is, that if the body to be preserved be of bulk, as a corpse is, then the body Experiment solitary touching fuel that consumeth
that incloseth it must have a virtue to draw forth, little or nothing.
and dry the moisture of the inward body; for else 774. It is reported, that at the foot of a hill near
the putrefaction will play within, though nothing the Mare Mortuum there is a black stone, where