662 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



the cemetery of Montparnasse, the water of which is shown by chemical 

 analysis to be of excellent quality. 



With respect to the inferior organisms which some persons believe 

 may be conveyed away by water that has traversed the soil of cem- 

 eteries, we may say that M. Pasteur has shown that the waters of 

 springs issuing from the ground even at a slight depth, are so desti- 

 tute of germs that they can not fertilize the liquids which are most 

 susceptible of change. Such waters, says M. Pasteur, " are at the base 

 of lands which have been traversed incessantly for centuries by streams, 

 the effect of which has been constantly to cause the finest particles of 

 the superposed soils to descend to the springs. The latter, in spite of 

 these favorable conditions for polluting them, remain indefinitely of a 

 perfect purity, a manifest proof that a certain thickness of earth arrests 

 all the finest solid particles." 



The wells in Paris being hardly ever used, they ought to be infected 

 by the nitrates which, supposed to be introduced into them, are not 

 drawn from them. It is, however, far from being proved that the 

 cemeteries contribute materially to the excess of nitrates in the well- 

 waters, for the analyses we have made show no sensible difference 

 from those which were made by M. Boussingault twenty years ago. 

 The mean quantity is the same, and our partial results show sometimes 

 a little less, sometimes a little more, saltness than those of M. Boussin- 

 gault. Now, people have continued to bury, and the ultimate prod- 

 ucts of decomposition have become more and more soluble ; and, if 

 the excess of nitrates that has been observed was due to the ceme- 

 teries, it would of necessity have increased. 



Besides the precise points which we have reviewed, more general 

 and indeterminate accusations are made against the cemeteries. Such 

 charges are connected with the prejudice, often ill-founded, under the 

 influence of which we a priori attribute injurious jiroperties to every- 

 thing that smells badly. This error arises in part from the repugnant 

 associations which are commonly attached to the substances and places 

 from which bad smells emanate ; but, while we admit that efiHuvia 

 which offend the sense of smell are not agreeable, it is not true that 

 such emanations are generally injurious to the public health. 



The facts of this order, which have long served as the foundation 

 of the accusations directed in the name of hygiene against the ceme- 

 teries, date from the last century, when chemistry and hygiene were 

 still in the rough. No modern observation enforces them. On the 

 contrary, contemporary scientists, who have studied the effects of ani- 

 mal putrefaction, are almost unanimous in regarding it as innocuous. 

 Such is the opinion of the most authoritative modern authors, Dr. 

 Warens, Bancroft, Andral, Parent-Duchatelet, and, more especially 

 with reference to cemeteries. Professors Depaul and Bouchardat. 



It is hardly necessary to mention that a number of occupations ex- 

 pose those engaged in them to putrid exhalations, without producing 



