180 PROCEED IX T 33 CE TEE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 
could not be buried near tbe place of death, but had to be 
kept over a week and then removed into the country. I 
proposed to supersede the usual costly and inefficient lead 
coffin by this simple means, and with complete success. 
The coffin was kept in a dwelling-house for 8 days during 
the warmth of June, not only without unpleasant effiuvium, 
but without that indescribable odour of death which is ordi- 
narily characteristic of a corpse recently dead. The method 
was easy in the extreme ; three inches of fine Peat Char- 
coal were laid on the floor of the coffin in place cf the con- 
ventional mattrass ; upon this the body was laid, and packed 
with the same material from the feet upwards towards the 
head , the face was left open a day or two longer in defer- 
ence to the wishes of relatives, and it was only when slight 
signs of putrefaction and changed colour began to show 
themselves that this was alco filled in ; th6 remaining space, 
* about three inches, was then filled to th3 top with the pow- 
der, and the lid screwed down. The price cf the best Peat 
Charcoal sent from London to Canterbury and delivered 
was only 25s., whereas a lead coffin would have cost many 
pounds without answering its purpose : for you may not be 
aware that the undertakers are in the habit, at the last mo- 
ment, of boring a small hole through the lead with a brad- 
awl to prevent what not uncommonly occurs without this 
manoeuvre, namely, the explosion of the leaden casing. 
Nearly all the old lead coffins in the vast vaults of my 
father’s London Church, were actually rent down the side 
from the neglect of this precaution. I need hardly com- 
ment farther on the value of lead coffins. 
The second ease which I wish to draw your attention to 
occurred in Madeira. It was that of Sir Francis Legard, 
