PARK AND CEMETERTf. 
274 
VIEWS OF RECENTLY IMPROVED PORTIONS OP FRANKLIN CEMETERY, FRANKLIN, PA. 
AND Cemetery^ every column of which is beneficial to us. 
C. D. Phipps, 
Franklin, Pa. Supt. Franklin Cemetery. 
Mr. Phipps sends several photographs of views in the 
grounds of Franklin Cemetery, two of which are reproduced 
here, showing parts of the grounds that have recently been 
planted and improved. 
Atiuual reports or extracts from them, historical sketches, 
descriptive circulars, photographs of improvements or dis- 
tinctive features are requested for use in this department. 
A fire in Oak Hill Cemetery, Newburyport, Mass., April 8, 
destroyed the tool house, causing a damage of about $600. 
^ 
Confederate Memorial Day was generally observed in the 
South on April 26, and interesting exercises were held in 
many Southern cemeteries. In the city cemetery in Jackson- 
ville, Fla., the feature of the day was an address by Hon. 
William J. Bryan, and appropriate memorial exercises are 
reported from a number of other cities and towns in Florida. 
* * * 
The Ancient Cemetery, of Hartford, Conn., is now under 
the care of the park board, and considerable work of improve- 
ment has been accomplished. Some of the headstones which 
were repaired with cement a few years ago during the reno- 
vating period now need more attention. The stones which 
were treated with paraffin seem to hold out well and the 
remedy appears to be effectual to prevent disintegration. 
Paraffin seems to fill up the pores of the stone in the same 
way that filling woodwork does, thus keeping out the at- 
mosphere and the gases. 
^ 
Some ingenious and philosophic German has discovered a 
means of making the dead useful on earth through the cen- 
turies. He proposes that the body shall be placed in a cement 
trough, having sufficient space, over which a cover is to be 
placed. By chemical processes the body takes up silicic acid 
and lime from the liquid cement, becomes truly petrified and 
is preserved in its original form. When this is perfected the 
inventor proposes that the blocks be used to build cyclopean 
temples, after they have been buried for a reasonable time to 
harden them. There are many suggestions that the bold 
man might exploit in the above, but the cemetery area over 
the country is not yet all taken up, and sentiment has the 
floor for the present generation at least. 
* * * 
The Clinton Cemetery Association, Clinton, Mich., have 
started an energetic system of improvements in Riverside 
Cemetery, and expect to make it one of the handsomest ceme- 
teries in any small town of the state. It comprises about 
twenty acres and was plotted forty years ago by a landscape 
architect. Two years ago the association was reorganized, 
and recently a perpetual care society was organized with 
prices ranging from $50 to $100. Superintendent George A. 
Kies writes: “We are grading blocks to the lawn plan, de- 
pressing driveways from eight to sixteen inches. I should be 
glad to read comments from any cemetery superintendents as 
to the success which their adoption of this plan has met with. 
We will plant about five hundred shrub plants this season. 
Our way of vaulting graves may be new and helpful to some 
of your readers. We allow three-inch space around rough 
box. This we cement even with top of the box, finishing 
smooth. For this it takes fifteen pails of sand to one loo-lb. 
sack of cement. Then we have a like amount of sand and 
cement ready to mix, for the top, which we make with a 
crown. We think it is far better than brick vaulting or slab 
tops, and it costs about one-third as much as brick. I would 
explain that it is unnecessary for us to lay cement bottoms, 
for the reason that we have a sub-surface layer of natural 
sandy soil. 
^ 
The new improved Portland burial vault, of which a sec- 
tional view is shown, has been recently introduced in Mount 
Greenwood Cemetery, Chicago, and is recommended by 
Superintendent Rudd as being better and cheaper than iron. 
