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Star (Christchurch), Issue 2043, 24 September 1874, Page 4

A Substitute foe Ceemation. — The advocates of cremation must look to their laurels, which appear likely to be wrested from them by a German eavant, Dr von 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 von Steinbeis, therefore, proposes to cover the body with Roman or Portland cement, which hardens into a solid mass, and renders the escape of noxious gases impossible. According to his plan the corpse would be placed in a sarcophagus, of already hardened cement, the cavity ia which it reposed could be filled up with the same material, and both would harden together into a thick slab of a substance resembling stone. Thua the deceased, buried in this manner, would rest within, instead of under, his tombstone, and g«ave and monument be comprised in the same block of imitation granite.