226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



quick for reducing the body to tlie minimum of material bulk — in a 

 word, to ashes or dust. No methods yet advanced and advocated 

 could be of universal adaptability, for the one simple reason, if no 

 other, that they have highly-technical features of manipulation that 

 could not commonly be commanded. The great problem will be how 

 to make the reduction at once a funeral ceremonial, rapid in execu- 

 tion, and very commendable to those who are bereaved by death. It 

 is especially noticeable that the popular ideas have insensibly gravi- 

 tated toward the burning of the dead, as the only sure and perfect 

 method of consuming the mortal remains. It is also especially no- 

 ticeable that cremation, though not without a very ancient history, 

 has never been perfected as a process for the reduction of animal 

 bodies to ashes. Such specimens as I have seen, after repeated experi- 

 ments by this method, have not been ashes, but cinders and scraggy 

 clinkers. Neither were they generally white, but gray and discolored. 

 Even in ancient times, descriptions of the *' assilegimn^'^ or gathering 

 of the bones and ashes, also washing, anointing, and depositing them 

 in urns, prove how imperfectly the combustion and calcination had 

 been effected. 



Dr. Brunetti's failure to burn the human body, after many hours of 

 earnest effort, and a resort to breaking, by mechanical force, the bones 

 and other hardened tissues, evidently inspired Prof. Reclam, of the 

 Leipsic University, w^ith a determination to solve this seemingly diffi- 

 cult problem. His efforts were rewarded with success. The body was 

 perfectly consumed, by heat alone, in twenty minutes, at a cost of less 

 than three dollars, though the apparatus, of course, was expensive. 

 An approved apparatus would, however, serve an indefinite number 

 of cases. 



In the interests of sentiment, personal preferences, and economy, 

 why might not scientific men suggest other ways of reducing the 

 dead body than by means of fire ? Has modern chemistry no re- 

 sources ? Have our electrologists no j)ractical ideas to present ? "Why 

 could there not be a lithological transformation of the dead, and a 

 subsequent aqueous or chemical dissolution? Why may there not be 

 a system of thorough desiccation, and subsequent pulverization ? 



Now, for the sake of illustrating our idea of a lithological trans- 

 formation, suppose we were to submit a body to such chemical action 

 as would convert it into one of the compounds of carbon ; say, for in- 

 stance, carbonate of calcium, or carbonate of magnesium, or possibly 

 one of the hydrated compounds of carbon with calcium or magnesium. 

 Of course, our product, if it were a carbonate of calcium, for instance, 

 would bear some relation and resemblance to calc-spar, marble, lime- 

 stone of various kinds, and chalk ; also the substance of egg-shells, the 

 shells of mollusks, and (with the addition only of a trace of phospho- 

 rus), to the bones of our body. Thus, the whole mass of structural 

 tissues would be practically ossified. If it were a hydrocarbonate of 



