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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and is to be buried within the grave of 

 his mother. As soon as his executor (and 

 personal friend) reached here, it was de- 

 cided to proceed with the cremation, but, 

 before it was done, his children at the East 

 intervened, and the operation was delayed. 

 One of his sons came here, and, after 

 reading the will and talking with his (the 

 doctor's) friends, to whom the doctor had 

 so often expressed his views in favor of 

 ' cremation,' decided that it ought to be 

 done, and wrote to the other children for 

 their consent, which they finally granted. 

 In the mean time the body had been em- 

 balmed, and kept continually packed in ice. 



"Dr. Hamilton, who had charge of the 

 * cremation,' consulted me as to the means 

 of doing it. They had talked of taking the 

 body to one of the reverberatory furnaces, 

 as they wanted it done quickly in fact, 

 before his children would know of it. I 

 thought a furnace could be built quickly 

 and cheaply that would answer the purpose, 

 and designed one, as per inclosed rough 

 sketch. 



" I will admit that many improvements 

 could have been made on it ; but, when you 

 consider that in six hours from the time it 

 was commenced a fire was built in it, I 

 think you will say we did well. Time and 

 expense were the obstacles I had to over- 

 come. The interior of the furnace was six 

 feet by two ; the bottom was of boiler-iron. 



FUKNAOE IN WHICH THE CREMATION WAS PERFORMED. 



three-eighths of an inch thick ; the roof of 

 fire-tiles, two feet long and one foot wide. 

 This enabled us to cover without an arch. 

 The door for the admission of the body was 

 at the south end. You will notice two stacks ; 

 the extra one was made so that we could 

 shut off the flames by means of a damper, 

 enabling us to put the body in, and also to 

 view the action without the flame approach- 

 ing the door. You will see that the flame, 

 when the furnace was at work, passed un- 

 der the floor the whole length, and then 

 returned over the body and up the stack at 

 the south end of the furnace. In the oper- 

 ation we used the coal from ' Rock Springs,' 

 on the Union Pacific Railroad. 



" It was intended to ' cremate ' immedi- 

 ately on the completion of the furnace, but 

 Dr. Hamilton had doubts as to the working 

 of the furnace ; so he placed in it a quarter 

 of beef, and found it to produce the desired 

 result on this in one hour and five minutes ; 

 and, while this was going on, word came to 

 stop it all. 



" Finally, all was arranged on the 31st 

 of July ; the body, then weighing 126 pounds, 

 was placed on a sheet of iron one-eighth of 

 an inch thick, turned up at the sides and 

 end, and introduced into the furnace, which 

 was at a full-red heat, at 6.20 p. m. The 

 dampers were opened, and the flame al- 

 lowed to pass directly over the body. For 

 some time quite a ' boilinc/ ' took place, and 

 lasted until most of the moisture had 

 been driven off"; in about an hour 

 nearly all the flesh was consumed and 

 the heat was raised. At the end of 

 two and a half hours all action was 

 at an end, but five minutes more was 

 allowed, when the fires were drawn 

 and air admitted to the furnace. In 

 about half an hour the plate was 

 di'awn, and the bones gathered up ; 

 they were perfectly white and friable, 

 so much so that they could be easily 

 crushed in the hand. After this we 

 rubbed the bones in an iron mortar, 

 and passed them all through a flour- 

 sieve, making in bulk about one quart, 

 and in weight about four pounds. 

 From the time the body was put into 

 the furnace until the ashes were ready 

 for the urn was four hours and forty 

 minutes. 



" From the construction of the fur- 



