Many persons have expressed surprise that a human body of
great size should weigh so little, as many human skeletons of nothing
but bone, exceed this weight. Recently some experiments have been made
in Paris, which have demonstrated the fact of the human body being
reduced to ten pounds, by being exposed to a heated atmosphere for a
long period of time. The color of the skin was dark, not black; the
flesh was hard and dry upon the bones. At the side of the body lay a
pair of moccasins, a knapsack and an indispensable or reticule. I will
describe these in the order in which I have named them. The moccasins
were made of wove or knit bark, like the wrapper I have described.
Around the top there was a border to add strength and perhaps as an
ornament. These were of middling size, denoting feet of small size.
The shape of the moccasins differs but little from the deer-skin
moccasins worn by the Northern Indians. The knapsack was of wove or
knit bark, with a deep, strong border around the top, and was about
the size of knapsacks used by soldiers. The workmanship of it was
neat, and such as would do credit as a fabric, to a manufacturer of
the present day. The reticule was also made of knit or wove bark. The
shape was much like a horseman's valise, opening its whole length on
the top.
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