_Foss._ Ah, Dr. Nautilus, how have I languish'd for your feather of the bird Porphyrion! _Naut._ But your dart of the Mantichora! _Foss._ Your haft of the antediluvian trowel, unquestionably the tool of one of the Babel masons! _Naut._ What's that to your fragment of Seth's pillar? _Poss._ Gentlemen, I affirm I have a greater curiosity than all of them. I have an entire leaf of Noah's journal aboard the ark, that was hewen out of a porphyry pillar in Palmyra. [_Fossile opens the case of the mummy._ _Naut._ By the formation of the muscular parts of the visage, I conjecture that this mummy is male. _Pos._ Male, brother! I am sorry to observe your ignorance of the symetry of a human body. Do but observe the projection of the hip; besides, the bloom upon the face; 'tis a female beyond all contradiction. _Fos._ Let us have no rash dispute, brothers; but proceed methodically----Behold the vanity of mankind! [_pointing to the mummy._] Some Ptolemy perhaps!---- _Naut._ Who by his pyramid and pickle thought to secure to himself death immortal. _Fos._ His pyramid, alas! is now but a wainscot case. _Pos._ And his pickle can scarce raise him to the dignity of a collar of brawn. _Fos._ Pardon me, Dr. Possum: The musæum of the curious is a lasting monument. And I think it no degradation to a dead person of quality, to bear the rank of an anatomy in the learned world. _Naut._ By your favour, Dr. Possum, a collar of brawn! I affirm, he is better to be taken inwardly than a collar of brawn. _Fos._ An excellent medicine! he is hot in the first-degree, and exceeding powerful in some diseases of women. _Naut._ Right, Dr. Fossile; for your Asphaltion. _Pos._ Pice-Asphaltus, by your leave. _Naut._ By your leave, doctor Possum, I say, Asphaltion. _Pos._ And I positively say, Pice-Asphaltus. _Naut._ If you had read Dioscorides or Pliny-- _Poss._ I have read Dioscorides. And I do affirm Pice-Asphaltus. _Foss._ Be calm, Gentlemen. Both of you handle this argument with great learning, judgment, and perspicuity. For the present, I beseech you to concord, and turn your speculations on my alligator. _Poss._ The skin is impenetrable even to a sword. _Naut._ Dr. Possum I will show you the contrary. [_Draws his sword._ _Poss._ In the mean time I will try the mummy with this knife, on the point of which you shall smell the pitch, and be convinc'd that it is the Pice-Asphaltus. [_Takes up a rusty knife._ _Foss._ Hold, Sir: You will not only deface my mummy, but spoil my Roman sacrificing-knife. Enter TOWNLEY. _Town._ I must lure them from this experiment, or we are discover'd. [_Aside._ [_She looks through a telescope._ What do I see! most prodigious! a star as broad as the moon in the day-time! [_The doctors go to her._ _Poss._ Only a halo about the sun, I suppose. _Naut._ Your suppositions, doctor, seem to be groundless. Let me make my observation. [_Nautilus and Possum struggle to look first._