TAA i.3.9.27

                                     –           23            –    
 

found the<i>re way to this laboratory in England. Mingled with

such thoughts was the bumptious and superior feeling that one

held in one's hand what/<that which> no one else in Egngn England had yet

seen<, ">dust from the sepulchral hall of the tomb of the king".

          And what would the analysis yield?. Would we find bact-

eria there?. Had they lived on for all these ages, or was the 

tomb really and utterly a place of the dead, without even the 

living forms/<spore> of a tiny microorganism?. If there were living

forms, what would they be like? – would they be </> come/<mon> species?

A waggish colleague suggested that doubtless, in keeping with

other objects in the tomb we should find, under the microscope,

our bacteria spores inlaid with blue and gold.

          There/<is> is not the place for me to describe how a bact-

-eriological analysis is carried out; I will merely give the

result. Dr Thaysen analysed the six swabs separately, and he

found that they were sterile, with one exception. In this one

exception two microorganisms were isolated, a common mould type,

and a sarcina, which is a common bacterium of the micrococcus

class. Both of these types are common air-born organisms which

are quite general and would be found anywhere. There is not the

slightest doubt that they were brought into the chamber by air-

currents while the doorway was being demolished and it is sur-

prising in the circumstances that only two microorganisms found

their way in. Had there been bacteria present in the chamber,

there would not have been just two, but very many. The results

then, showed that bacteria were no longer present in the tomb.

When the tomb was sealed up, over 3000 years ago, there must have

been manu/<y> millions of bacteria present in the chamber, but these

have evidently dried off in the long interval. If bacteria spore

have been unable to survive the long sojourn in the tomb, it is,