CREMATION. 29 



CREMATION. 



HY W. H. I'KANCE. 



Read before the Society October IGtb, 1883. 



We have it on very old authority that " there is nothing' new under 

 the sun ;" and thouf,'h from liis ability to re-arrange the foriuH and 

 combinations of matter, presumptuous man is frequently tempted to 

 exclaim, " Here is something new," all he can do is to ti-anspose 

 substances into new forms, as by the transposition of the alphabet, 

 words of endless variety are produced. Though he use the earth 

 as a ball on which to wind his telegraphs and railways, he works 

 with nothing new, or which did not exist before his own form was 

 evolved from pre-existent matter. He can facilitate, and in some 

 ways he can also retard, that which Nature is constantly doing, 

 namely, changing the forms of matter by decomposition, )iot 

 destntctiou. 



What is decomposition ? What is the agency which commences 

 the operation and completes the process ? 



The popular meaning attached to the word is an erroneous one, or 

 at best is very remote from that of the word hurning or combustion as 

 applied to the consumption of fuel in our dwellings and manufactories ; 

 yet decomposition and combustion are one and the same thing, 

 varying only in degree, or rapidity, or both. It is the result of heat, 

 without which nothing can live ; nothing which, when dead, can again 

 become food for the living ; without which those arteries of the earth 

 — the rivers, circulating the blood of the earth, would cease to flow. 

 But for it evex'ything containing moisture would be locked in the 

 rigidity of ice ; perfect cold being the normal condition of matter not 

 subject to active heat. 



This is well illustrated iu the Arctic regions, where, owing to the 

 equatorial fulness of the earth's form, the sun's rays are intercepted ; 

 and in proportion to such interception is the increase of cold, and a 

 consequent decrease in the rapidity of decomposition or combustion of 

 organic substances, so as almost to cease at times, as in the case of 

 Arctic animals, which are occasionally found on thawing to be good 

 food, though possibly they have been dead for many years. An arti- 

 ficial application of this law of nature is now in regular use in the 

 Paris Morgue, or temporary receptacle of the unknown dead, by 

 which means there is a valuable suspension of natural decay or disso- 

 ciation of the substances of the body. 



Where a perpetual state of ice does not exist, there decomposition 

 fills up the intervals, the increase of the one being accompanied by 

 the decrease of the other, until, as iu the Tropics, decomposition reigns 

 supreme, and there, as a consequence, life is more abundant. 



