British Museum
May 12th 1855
My dear Sir,
I have added your name to the list of subscribers to the Portrait of our Linnean President and will hand over the Order to the Treasurer.
Your version of what took place in relation to Mummy Wheat requires some little addition to render it complete. The late Mr Strickland, one of a Committee who had undertaken, at the instance of the British Association, to make a series of observations on the vitality of Seeds, applied to the Trustees of the British Museum for a selection from the specimens of Mummy Wheat in the Museum Collection, in order to test the question of its vitality. Mr Brown undertook to make the selection, and a packet of grains of Wheat, Barley and Lentils stated to be taken from Mummies, forming part of Mr Sams's Collection purchased by the Museum was transmitted to Mr Strickland, and a similar packet was at the same time forwarded to Kew. No results from the experiments made on these specimens were communicated either to Mr Brown or to the Secretary of the Museum.
About the same time Mr Brown obtained from Sir Gardener Wilkinson some specimens of supposed Mummy Wheat among which he found the grain of Maize to which you allude, and as this circumstance proved the modern origin of the stock of which it formed part, more particular enquiry was made and it was ascertained that Neither Sir G. Wilkinson nor Mr Lane (from whom he received it) had taken it themselves either from Mummy or Catacomb, but that it had been purchased by Mr Lane from the Arabs as so obtained by them in the state in which Mr Brown received it from Sir G. Wilkinson.
Sir W. Hooker must have misunderstood Mr Brown in reference to Botanical forceps. Some years ago a Cutler in Oxford Street of the name of [illeg.] was in the habit of making, in conformity with Mr Brown's directions, small botanical two-bladed knives of a very convenient form but the shop now no longer exists and of forceps I can give you no information.
I have enquired of Mr Birch, who has special charge of Egyptian Antiquities, whether he has himself ever seen wheat taken from a mummy, and his answer is in the negative. Without this autopsy on the part of some credible person, it seems to me that further experiments could not possibly lead to a satisfactory result.
Believe me ever
My dear Sir
Faithfully yours
John J. Bennett
Please cite as “HENSLOW-1450,” in Ɛpsilon: The Correspondence of John Stevens Henslow accessed on