DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.

Otago Witness, Issue 1191, 26 September 1874, Page 3

DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.

The 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. Dr Yon Steinbeis therefore proposes to ccver the body with Roman or Portland cement, which hardens into a solid masa and renders the escape of noxious gases impossible. According to this plan the corpse would be placed in a sarcophagus of already hardened cement, the cavity in which it reposed would be filled up with the same material, and both would harden together into a thick slab of a substance resembling stone. 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.

A farmer in Slagelfe, Denmark, has ploughed up in his field a beautifully preserved gold cup, of Byzantine workmanship. According to Berlingske, this remnant of the days when the Vikings spoiled Micklegarth will be secured for the Oldnordisk Museum in Copenhagea.

A calculation of a simple kind has bieu made to show the value to the United States of the immigration that country has received in the mere matter of money brought in by the new arrivals. It is estimated that from 1783 to 1873 there were 8,779,174 alnns landed in the United States. They bi ought about GBdol. per head. Placing it at only 50d01., we have £444,000,000 as the result. the fact that clerks are a drag in Great Britain — as iudeed they are everywhere — some employers appear to find it difficult to get suitable clerks. As an illustration of this, it may be mentioned that an employer recently advertised in the Scotsman for a clerk "gifted with brxina." What a trial of aggravation these three words tell ! As the advertisement only appeared, once, it is to be hoped the adviser obtained what he wanted, and is now freed from his past trials.

The Western Morning News publishes a description of the terrible predicament of the lighthouse keepers on Bishop's Rock during a recent hurricane, the violence of which is described as being fearful. The Bishop's Rock lighthouse is erected on a rock beyond the Scilly Islands, far out in the Atlantic. It was struck by enormous waves in quick succession, each causing a noise like the discharge of cannon, and making the massive stone building rock to aud fro, so that every article fell away from its place. One fearful sea broke the great lens in several pieces, and another smashed the cylinders of the spar light, while sand from the bottom— 3o fathoms deep — was found heaped upon the lighthouse gallery. The keepers had. a narrow escape.