THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
11 iiiusTDiifD Moimy joniiiiL ntiiiiED ii inE iitehesi of ceueiehies 
I-I A.IOI-IT, 
334 Deapbopn Stpeet, CHICAGO. 
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VoL. IV. CHICAGO, JAN’Y 1895.. No. ii. 
CONTENTS. 
THE USE AND AriUSE OF BOULDER MONUMENTS 121 
EMBALMING AS A SANITARY MEASURE 122 
DRY RUBBLE FOUNDATIONS 128 
*FALL AT GR.ACELAND, CHICAGO 123 
CEMETERY GREENHOUSES 121 
SOME RIGHTS OF OFFICIALS OF CEMETERY ASSOCIA- 
TIONS.-*OAKWOOD CEMETERY, AUSTIN, MINN 127 
*THE G. P. MORISINI MAUSOLEUM, WOODLAWN i 29 
CEMETERY NOTES Go 
CEMETERY REPORTS.-TREES AND SHRUBS.-THE 
lawn ,3; 
CREMATION ,32 
PUBLISHER'S DEPARTMEN'I' ,32 
’’Illustrated. 
The Use and Abuse of Boulder Monuments. 
In many of our cemeteries, especially in the 
east, the use of natural boulders for memorial pur- 
poses is becoming quite common, and within cer- 
tain limitations and with surroundings inviting the 
use of such natural monuments, many appropriate 
effects have resulted. The example so set in the 
use of such memorials, has, however, had the ten- 
dency to create a “fad,” if we might term it so, 
and we find very many instances reported of per- 
sons making long and expensive journeys into fa- 
vorite localities to discover boulders and rocks to 
meet their desires. One instance at hand is that of 
the transportation of a twenty ton boulder ten miles 
in Indiana for a cemetery memorial. Another 
where a citizen of Ohio traveled to Rhode Island to 
search for a satisfactory boulder on the beach at 
Quonochontaug, and went to the expense of get- 
ting it home. 
The original idea clinging to the boulder for 
memorial purposes was that of ruggedness or sta- 
bility, and such memorials have frequently been 
chosen to perpetuate the names of men whose local 
or public character created this , general impres- 
sion, and in such cases nothing more appropriate as 
memorials could be found. But this granted, even 
then comes in the important question as to whether 
the spot to be thus marked will detract from the 
monument, or the monument impair the natural 
characteristics of the ground, and the whole value 
of the project thus be ruined. So that under the 
most favorable circumstances the cemetery author- 
ities should exercise their prerogatives in the admis- 
sion of such a class of memorials. 
But it has come to pass that the “fad” before 
suggested has grown so rapidly that there is emi- 
nent danger of the beautiful idea being overwhelm- 
ed in the demand for boulder monuments, and our 
cemeteries dotted with unmeaning stones, having 
no significance whatever but that of thoughtless 
‘ ‘copyism.” 
But the evil has gone farther than this, for the 
impossibility of supplying natural boulders to meet 
the demand has resulted in the manufacturers sup- 
plying quantities of what is called rock face work, 
which, in the majority of cases, is the poorest pos- 
sible substitute for mother natures handiwork. 
That rock face work can be produced in large mass- 
es to, in a certain measure, simulate natural cleav- 
age and fracture, may be admitted, but it is actu- 
ally practically impossible to do so in the smaller 
class of monuments, so that the general result will 
be, if not checked by common sense or cemetery 
management, a continued degradation to memori- 
al art. 
A cemetery either besprinkled with boulder 
stones or recklessly ornamented with co-called rock 
face work, will very shortly find itself loaded with 
the responsibility of reform, to meet the enlighten- 
ed taste happily rapidly engrafting itself on our in 
stitutions, and which should be even now the gov- 
erning principle of our cemetery management. 
The use of the boulder for memorial purposes, 
after all, loses nearly all its value, divorced from 
the idea with which it has usually been associated. 
To the ordinary being there is no beauty in a boul- 
der, and as we all know, in localities where they 
abound, they are usually an abomination to man. 
To a person of a searching, enquiring, nature the 
boulder is enveloped with a wealth of information, 
and carries locked up in its ruggedness secrets only 
to be revealed to the seekers after natures facts and 
processes. 
To commemorate man after he has passed away, 
the boulder, held to represent certain qualities and 
characteristics, if appropriate is unique, and fills a 
place no other memorial very well can; but used 
