DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 3929, 19 September 1874, Page 6 (Supplement)

DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.

Tho advocates of cremation must look to their laurels, which, appear likely to be wrested from them by a German savant, Dr yon Steinbeis. His proposed method of disposing of the bodies of the dead provides against injury to the living, while it offers no violence to the feeling which shrinks from destroying the corpse of a beloved friend or relation. Decomposition is, of course, an innocuous process provided its results cannot infect the air. DrVon Btej.nbeis. therefore proposes to cover the body with lonian or Portland cement, which hardens into a solid mass and renders the escape of noxious gases impossible. According to this plan the GQrps.p would be placed in a sarcophagus of already hardened cement, the cavity in which it reposed w,Quld be filled up with the same material, and both would harden together into a thick slab of a substance resembling store. Thus the deceased buried in this manner would rest within instead of under his tombstone, and grave and monument would be comprised in the same block of imitation granite.—Pall Mall Gazette.