The age-herald., 1899-03-26
MUMMIES IN FASHION AGAIN

Mummies are coming in style again. poor family indeed that could not num- nifty Its dead. and even as late as 800 years ago the process of mummifcation was in general use in Spain, Italy and Turkey.
 With the latest discoveries in embalm- ing, mummifying has fallen out of fashion and now a mummy is curiosity
 The only examples of mummies of today are furnished by very few of the coun- tries of Europe who treat the bodies of their dead rulers so that they will last for ever.
 A mummy when 1t is properly prepared becomes as hard as stone and greatly re- sembles stone in its external properties. It is hard, brittle, grey and fine grained. It quite loses all human resemblance Only it is light; and that is almost the only way in which it can be distinguished from the carved images of stone
 The process of mummifying was at it's best at the time of Christ and before. The ancients possessed secrets of drugs and temperature which we of today, with all our boasted science and discovery, lack. They knew how to prepare a dead body quickly, and so well that, in nine months, it had become stone image, as like a piece of rock as one pea is like unto an- other Their treatment was with the use of chemicals in which they wrapped the body and by the temperature which was, it is thought, very hot so as to dry the flesh upon the bones as we dry certain fish in the sum- Old Sol, too, must have as- sisted them for they had none of the arti- fical devices of steam which we have to- day.
 But mummifying in way is known to- ,A l.. tl,@ ,,,-l~t l1 A.aze T more than we would suppose. It is claimed by many chemists that the regular em- baming is practically a mummifying pro- cess, and that the dead of today, if they were to be unearthed ten years hence, would be found splendidy made into stone.
 This theory is borne out by recent dis entombment. When General Grant was placed in his tomb with much pomp two years ago; and laid on the heights with his head pointing toward the splendid bay of New York, many of his friends urged that the sepulchre be opened that they might get one last look at his well remembered face. At this a wall of horror arose and the project was abandoned. But the more scientific of his friends afterwards ex- plained that no sacrilege was intended. The coffin of metal enclosed one of the firmest wood and inside this lay the body of the general splendidly embalmed. Thus encased they claimed that mummification must have taken place ana they lonSeu to look upon his face of stone.
 This opinion was shared by so many that the workmen in charge of the new sar- cophagus become interested; and one of them afterward told the writer that-when lifting the coffin, something inside was dis tinctly heard to shake, making hard sound not unlike the rattling of stone within a wooden box.
 Ii took Alphonso XII. exactly thirteen years to become a mummy He is now complete, and the little boy king can look upon the face of the father whom he never saw. He can gaze into those eyes of stone and into that non-committal mouth of hardest rock and wonder what those lips would have said and what those eyes would have aumonished. Upon a great pedestal he will lie stretched out through all ages, mummy of the nineteenth century. Be- side him Is a vacant space, waiting for the next Alphonso to join him in the silence of mummy land. Back of him as far as your eye can penetrate the dim Escuria., stand the pedestals, high, sinister and interesting, the mummies of past and gone Alphonsos of Spain.