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as religious feeling is concerned, Almighty power can raise 
our ashes as well as our dust. 
Pror. Wurtz remarked that in his view, this whole ques- 
tion of cremation was much less a scientific than a social one. 
He could not believe that such a practice was to be revived 
in this day. After mentioning that some individuals had 
willed their bodies to gas companies to be converted into gas, 
he stated that he had made calculations as to the possibility 
of such a disposal. In a human body, some seventy per 
cent. of the weight is water; there would, therefore, be about 
twelve gallons of water in a body weighing 140 lbs. A gas- 
retort would be so much cooled by the conversion of such a 
mass of water into vapor, that the production of gas would 
be rendered impossible. 
Dr. A. N. Bet, of Brooklyn, strongly urged the sanitary 
importance of cremation, and dwelt especially on the 
danger arising from graveyards. Hven at such a distance as 
three-quarters of a mile, fatal cases of disease have been 
traced to the deleterious influence of a burying-ground. Ty- 
phoid fevers, in particular, are apt thus to arise. Nor is it 
only during the period of use, that graveyards are thus dan- 
gerous ; they remain so for a long time after any interments 
have been made. The grass is green and the vegetation rank 
and luxuriant, to a most notable degree, even in very old 
burial-grounds ; and farmers know that this fertility lasts for 
twenty or thirty years. The organic matter is at a considera- 
ble depth in the soil, and hence is not acted upon rapidly by 
the sun’s heat; but the evolution of gases, ete, is slow and 
long-continued; and for that very reason, the vicinity of 
such places is highly perilous to health. 
Dr. Bell dwelt upon this subject quite fully, citing various 
illustrations; in conclusion he argued that there is no possible 
objection to cremation from a Christian point of view, and 
that it presents a truly-scientific question of much moment. 
Dr. H. C. Botton and Pror. EeLEeston both observed 
that in some regions the modes of burial are attended with 
