applied to Public Cemeteries. 401 



London cemeteries as throughout the country ; and in our opinion it would 

 be well to tax it in such a manner as to do away with it altogether. 



The interments made in a single grave, whether common graves or family 

 graves, are too numerous in proportion to their depth. The distance at 

 which coffins are placed apart is seldom more than a foot, sometimes even 

 the coffin is laid bare, the evils resulting from which are: 1st, that when 

 an interval of two or three weeks or months elapses between the in- 

 terments, the earth to be removed is so offensive as to reduce the grave- 

 digger to drinking, and shock the bystander by the smell of the earth 

 brought up to the surface ; and 2d, that by placing so many bodies in one 

 grave the gases of decomposition must, when the grave is filled, unavoid- 

 ably reach the surface and escape into the atmosphere. The remedy for 

 both evils is to place and retain a layer of earth of 6 ft. in thickness over each 

 coffin ; because we consider it as proved by the general experience of grave- 

 diggers throughout Europe, that no evil results from the decomposition of a 

 body with this thickness of soil over it. The manner in which the soil 

 operates is this : having been recently moved and the parts separated, the in- 

 terstices are necessarily filled with atmospheric air ; and as the gases are 

 generated in the coffin they expand, rise into the soil, and displace the at- 

 mospheric air, or mix with it. In this way this poisonous gas, instead of 

 rising into the air itself, only forces out of the soil a portion of atmospheric 

 air equal in bulk to what was generated in the coffin. When the layer of 6 ft. 

 of soil over the coffin is not next the surface, but perhaps many feet beneath 

 it, the mephitic air may still be assumed as driven into the soil immediately 

 above the coffin, so that in whatever position the layer of 6 ft. may be relatively 

 to the ground's surface, it may always be assumed, for all practical purposes, 

 to contain the greater part of the mephitic gases which escape from the 

 coffin. A certain proportion of these gases will also escape laterally, at least 

 in all soils through which water will filtrate freely, such as gravels and sands ; 

 but scarcely any will pass laterally through clays, and none through the sides 

 of a brick grave, unless these are built chequered with openings, as has been 

 recommended in p. 155. 



If the principle of having 6 ft. of soil over every coffin were adopted, the mode 

 suggested in p. 98. and p. 216., of having movable"covering stones to be inserted 

 after every interment, as soon as 6 ft. of soil had been filled in and well 

 rammed, would be found a useful guide to the grave-digger, who would stop 

 whenever he came to the stone, and take it out and reserve it till after the in- 

 terment was effected. 



All the inconvenience that would result to cemetery companies by com- 

 pelling them to have 6 ft. of soil over every body would be merely that of 

 excavating to a greater depth ; and, as we have said before (p. 216.), there can 

 be no reason why graves should not be as deep as wells. 



In some of the London cemeteries the coffins in brick graves are placed 

 one over another, and separated only by two iron bars, the ends of which are 

 inserted in the side walls, the space between the last-inserted coffin and the 

 ledger or covering stone at the surface of the ground being left open, and 

 consequently the whole of the coffins in tiie grave communicating with its 

 atmosphere. It is evident in this case that all the gases of decomposition 

 will escape into the open space, and, by their expansive power, force out part 

 of the mortar or cement under the covering stone; but, even if it should not 

 do this, there must be great danger every time the covering stone is taken 

 off, and more especially as it is necessary for a man to descend to the last- 

 deposited coffin, in order to insert two bars over it to bear the cofTm about to 

 be deposited. The remedy for this evil is to cover every coffin with a flag-stone 

 or slate, resting on ledges projecting from the side walls, and rendered per- 

 fectly airtight, by covering the joints with a coat of cement of several inciies 

 in thickness ; or, in default of this mode, embedding and covering the coffin 

 with cement in the manner already described in p. 217. By no other mode can 

 so many coffins be got into one grave, and with perfect safety (if the opera- 



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