New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-12-20

afford Beautiful Tint for Bro5cn Hair zch Clint of Gold
Threatened 7cih Extinction from Lack of Material

1t is Surmised, though, that the b1tumen IN
which they were stepped in their embalming
is what gives US this fine brown.
Il have heard of the condemnation of our
business that has grown out of the growing
scarcity of mummies and with this condem-
nation I can sympathize. 1 can't sympathize
though, with any sentimental condemnation of
the business. For mummes the fruit of
desire to preserve the dead in beautiful and
seemly manner, and it appears TO me that,
the bright, brown hair of a womans portrait,
a mummy is preserved, after ALL in a more
beautiful and seemIv way than if it still con-
tinued to desiccate in an Egyptian crypt"
He lifted up a portion of the mound of faded
linen and slight dust arose. family odorous of
spices.
These narrow strips of linen" he said "are
the Wrappings of the mummy There are prob
ably five hundred yards of wrappings here. We
have had mummies swathed in as many as loo
yards by actual measurement. To undo so much
linen, were the task carefully performed, would
take two or three days. We cut the linen off
1t saves time.
We find each toe separately wrapped. Each
finger is separately wrapped. Round and round
the toes the fingers, the arms. the legs, the body
and the head the wrappngs go, hundreds of
times They are applied with wonderful skill
They serve at once the two purposes Of a pro-
lection and of ornament. for when they are
completed they make a firm, thick almost i'm
permeable envelope. and this envelope repro
duces accurately the human figure The
mummy within will be shrunken; it was
shrunken. have doubt, when the wrappings
were applied; but the wrappings correct all its
defects; they fill out the hoIows and angles;
like costumes artfully padded. they appear to
cover a figure of great beauty
70 in
out of mummies Why should they? Do medi-
cal students object to dissecting? Do anato-
mists object to preparing the pure white skeI-
etons, artculated with silver wire, that the sur
gical dealers sell? All these things are for the
good of mankind. and they do not harm the
dead
Il buy my mummies through a dealer in
Paris. Where he gets his stock 1 don't know
but he is never at a loss to fill an order. Mum
mics vary in price. Those of Thebes are the
best, and may bring $3.50 apiece A big factory
like ours Will buy a whole mummy at time. A
smaller one will buy a body. leg or couple of
arms. The little factories buy their mummy
powdered. in five or ten pound tins-a foolish
thing to do. because these tins are apt to be
adulterated with earth or asphalt.
My business naturally has caused me to take
an interest in mummes. 1 have read from time
to time various monographs and articles on the
old Egyptian processes Of embaIming. 1t seems
that three thousand or four thousand years ago.
when embalming was at its height in Egypt
there were suburban settlements given over to
this CHASTITY business Such a settlement was
called a metropolis 1t would be engaged upon
the embalming of nine hundred or a thousa nd
bodies at time, huge was the business done
1t was not, though business. 1t was rite a
religious rite. Those who practised it were
priests