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Principles of Landscape- Gardening 



and economical scale, is the public vault in the Abney Park Cemetery. The 

 most classical situation for vaults is in the face of a steep rocky bank, where 

 they require no drainage, and can be entered without descending more than 

 a few steps ; such as occurs in the St. James's Cemetery, Liverpool; the Shef- 

 field Cemetery; and the Cathedral, or Necropolis, Cemetery of Glasgow. Cata- 

 combs above ground, like those in the London and Westminster Cemetery, 

 like some private tombs in the Kensal Green Cemetery, and like those 

 in the new burying-ground attached to the old church at Brighton, are, in 

 our opinion, in bad taste ; since the general idea of burial, no matter by what 

 mode, implies the descent of the body below the surface of the ground. 

 Private vaults for the use of a single family are commonly made of the width 

 of two or three coffins, and of such a depth as to hold several placed one 

 over the other, commonly with iron bars or plates of stone between, so that 

 no coffin may have more to bear than its own weight, and the air may be 

 allowed to surround them, to prevent them from rotting. Sometimes each 

 coffin is placed in a separate cell, and closed up with masonry. 



Catacombs. — Sometimes the vault is divided into ceils like bins in a 

 wine-cellar, by vertical divisions of brick or stone ; and these cells are 

 called catacombs, though the term is frequently applied to a vault or crypt 

 not subdivided into cells. Each cell, when the coffin is inserted, is hermeti- 

 cally sealed by building it up with brickwork, or inserting a tablet of stone or 

 marble, inscribed with the name, age, &c., of the deceased. In the new 

 London cemeteries, the cells or catacombs are frequently only closed with an 

 open iron grating, the end of the coffin being fully exposed to view. In some 

 cases the cells are literally shelves, and the entire side of the coffin is ex- 

 posed, as in the West London Cemetery. Both of these modes are attended 

 with great danger to the living ; whether by the bursting of the lead coffins 

 from the expansion of the gas in the bodies within them, or from its 

 escape through crevices in the lead coffin left accidentally, or through holes 

 made on purpose by the undertaker under the brass plate, as already men- 

 tioned (p. 96.). When a private vault is formed on even ground in an 

 open cemetery, steps are made for descending to it ; and these steps are 

 commonly covered by a flat stone, level with or slightly above the surface ; 

 or in some cases, as where the steps are under a walk or path, the stone is 

 concealed under this. Over the vault is placed a monument of some kind, 

 most commonly what is called a square tomb, as in Jig. 30. ; in which a is 



Fig. 30. Section A B in the Plan fig. 35., through a Vault filled up with Catacombs, and also 

 through a common Grave, k. 



the tomb or superstructure ; h, the cover to the steps ; c, the steps ; d, the 

 catacombs or cells ; e, a coffin placed in the lowest catacomb, and sealed up 

 at /; g, a door of slate, flag-stone, or iron ; and //, the grass alleys. In this 

 figure is also shown a common grave ; in which i is the foot-stone ; k, the 



