CREMATION. 



217 



land, by Dr. Cassie, secretary of the Crema- 

 tion Society in London; France, by 1'rof. 

 Miilli-r, of Paris; Holland, by Dr. EgtHng, 

 iiH'ilical director for tbo province of South 

 Holland, and I'rof. HoogewortF, Ph. D., of Kot- 

 u-nlam ; Switzerland, by Gottfried Kinkel ; 

 (u-riiiany, by members of the unions of the 

 cities of Berlin, Bremen, Chemnitz, Gotha, 

 Hamburg, and Leipsic, and the Urno Union of 

 Dresden. At the introductory meeting, held 

 on the 6th, reports were made by the delegates 

 of the condition of the unions in their several 

 dwelling-places and countries. The public 

 meeting, on the morning of the 7th, was at- 

 tended by about six hundred citizens, among 

 whom were several ladies of the most culti- 

 vated circles of the city. Gottfried Kinkel, of 

 Switzerland, made an address, in which he 

 spoke of the aesthetics of cremation, of the 

 pious exercises for which its ceremonies 

 would give opportunity, and of its advantages 

 in a sanitary point of view, and replied to the 

 arguments which had been brought against 

 it. He declared that, though he held that 

 every one had a right to cremation, of which 

 not even the state could deprive him, it was 

 proposed, in introducing it, not to m'ake it ob- 

 ligatory, only permissive. Engineer Schneider 

 described the various methods which had been 

 proposed for performing the process. It was 

 understood, as of course, that the ancient fu- 

 neral-pyres would not be revived, but closed 

 apparatus would be substituted for them. It 

 was decided to erect, by the united efforts of 

 the friends of cremation in Germany and other 

 lands, a building for conducting the process, 

 either at Coburg or Gotha. Liberal subscrip- 

 tions were offered, and the sum of 10,000 

 marks were secured in the meeting. With 

 this sum the erection of a suitable building 

 was considered pecuniarily assured. The es- 

 tablishment of a journal to advocate the cause 

 was determined upon, and an international 

 commission was appointed to carry that pur- 

 pose into effect, consisting of Gottfried Kin- 

 kel, of Zurich ; Sir Henry Thompson, of Lon- 

 don ; Prof. Emile Muller, of Paris ; Baron von 

 Stockhausen and Dr. Kuchenmeister, of Dres- 

 den ; and Herr Stier, of Gotha. Plans for a 

 large building, or "temple," for cremation, by 

 Carl Pieper, engineer, of Dresden, and G. Li- 

 lienthal, architect, of Berlin, were inspected by 

 the congress. They represent a building of 

 elegant architectural appearance, surrounded 

 with gardens and groves. It is provided with 

 anterooms and a chapel, in which the religious 

 rites may be celebrated in the presence of the 

 friends of the deceased. The body, adorned 

 with garlands and flowers, rests upon a cata- 

 falque, which after the services is noiselessly 

 sunk into the furnace-room below. Here it is 

 *Aken by the attendants and placed in its ap- 

 propriate cell or retort, where it is consumed. 

 In another room, or crypt, below the furnaces, 

 is arranged a series of cells, eacli correspond- 

 ing to a furnace-cell above it, into which the 



ashes of the deceased are carefnlly turned 

 after the burning is completed. Thin room i* 

 r. .I'-hcd by spacious staircases from the- chapt-1. 

 At the proper time the friends are called down 

 to witness the ceremonial collection of the re- 

 mains and the deposition of them in the urn, 

 and finally in the columbarium. In places 

 where several funerals are to be expected dai- 

 ly, the temple will be furnished with a corre- 

 sponding number of furnace-cells, each with 

 its corresponding cell for ashes in the crypt. 

 A conspicuous feature of the plan is exhibited 

 in the long rows of urn-houses, or columbaria, 

 appearing as wings to the main building. 



The first furnace for cremation in the 

 United States has been built at Washington, 

 Pa., by Dr. F. J. Le Moyne. The building is 

 small and entirely plain, and with the furnace 

 cost $1,600. It contains two rooms, a recep- 

 tion-room, with a table for the reception of 

 the corpse, and a columbarium for the tem- 

 porary deposit of the ashes, and a room for the 

 furnace. The furnace is constructed on the 

 Martin-Siemens principle, and consists of a 

 structure of brick and tire-brick, ten feet long, 

 six feet wide, and six feet high, inclosing a 

 semi-cylindrical retort of fire-clay, seven feet 

 long, twenty -four inches wide, and twenty 

 inches high, its lid accessible from the outside 

 at the door of the furnace. The body is thrust 

 into this retort after the latter has been prop- 

 erly heated from below. The gases formed 

 during the process of burning are carried off 

 by a chimney. The required degree of heat is 

 obtained by means of a fan-blast. At this fur- 

 nace the first public cremation in the United 

 States was conducted, on the 6th of December, 

 18Y6, when the body of Joseph Henry Louis 

 Charles, Baron de Palm, was burned in it. 

 Baron de Palm, a man of considerable social 

 distinction, and a member of several honorable 

 societies and orders, died in the city of New 

 York on the 20th of May, 1876. He made the 

 request of his executors that his body should 

 be burned whenever the use of a furnace could 

 be obtained. It was embalmed, to await the 

 building of such a furnace. The process of the 

 cremation was witnessed by a number of per- 

 sons invited for the purpose, representing the 

 Boards of Health of the State of Massachusetts 

 and of the cities of Brooklyn and Pittsburp, 

 physicians of several cities, correspondents of 

 newspapers, and other persons. The fire was 

 kindled in the furnace at seven o'clock on the 

 morning of the day previous to that of the 

 cremation. At half-past eight o'clock on the 

 morning of the 6th, the body was placed in the 

 retort. It had been deprived of its fluids dur- 

 ing the process of embalming and was in very 

 fit condition for a favorable operation. It 

 was wrapped in a sheet which was saturated 

 with alum to prevent exposure after the cloth 

 was burned away, and was surrounded with 

 flowers and evergreens. The evergreens were 

 burned quickly, but their forms, as well as that 

 of the sheet, could be plainly seen during 



