Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-08-17
HOUSES OF THE DEAD
Plan of Burying Bodies That Would Do
Away With Cemeteries.

HUUSES OF THE DEAD.
Plan of Burying Bodies That Would Do
Away With Cemeteries.
From the PitlsbrIg Dispatch
A number OF doctors, undertakes, ceme-
terry officials and Others in the two cities
are now considering the merits of a new
plan of burial to supplant the use of GENE
teries and furnish an acceptable medium
between the burial in the ground and ere
nation. 1t is no less than plan of erect
ing mammoth mausoleums, to hold thou
sands of bodies, and, by a system of air
draughtS, dry the bodies up as the Indians
on the plains leave their dead on seafolds
to be dried and preserved by the wind,
leaving the bones. muscles and fibers iu-
tact, with the skin over them, but the
fatty substance underneath wasted, vapor-
lied and carried off by the draught Of a
furnace, which viii consume the odors.
The process is now in the hands OF a
rich company in the East, that proposes
TO Introduce its plan Of burial into every
city in the country. The company has
issued neat catalogues with plates and de-
scriptions of It's plans. The mausoleum
will be built of stone or other durable
material, Concrete is the preferable ma
terlai tancied, perhaps, for purposes of
ornamentation, with vitrifed brick, gran
lite or other time-defying stones.
The designs will be after Greek, Roman
and other styles of architecture, and from
the concrete foundations the thousands of
sepulchers and of the arched walls and cor
ridors will go up with the outer walls,
forming one immense casting without seam
or joint.
The interior plan will resemble that of
well-appointed library, with It's main
corridors and diyerging halls leading TO
the different sections. The sepulchers of
solid concrete four inches thick, without
seam or joint, of the proper size to receive
caskets, are arranged in tiers of six upon
either side of the Railways.
The opening into each sepulcher is pro-
vided with two doors. The inner door of
plate-glass will be Theoretically sealed as
soon as the space is occupied. The outer
door may be of highly wrought gold, sill
yer, bronze or ornate stone, and NAV be
decorated with scriptures or inscriptions.
or adorned in other WAYS in accordance
with the desires of surviving friends. A
portion OF the mausoleum will be set apart
for family compartments.
The sepuIchers will be numbered and a
deed given to the purchaser, and records
of those inferred, including data of their
life, etc, will be kept on file.
For those who wish it, electrical appara-
tus Is to be provided, so arranged and ad-
justed to the body that the slightest move
ment in the casllet will start an alarm and
warn the Waterman.
Tho capr1 h a,., - ,...-.-.z-.7 -
cOnduits so arranged as to bring fresh dry
air into them, and conduct it through the
casket space by forced draughts to a CEN
trail furnace in the sub-ceHar, remote from
the spaces devoted to the dead To that
furnace the gases and vaporized fluids Of
the body are thus borne and there con.
sumed, and the escape into the atmosphere
of any noxious matter is prevented. The
air current is sufficiently rapid TO make an
entire change in the contents of the casket
space every second.
The ends and upper portions of the cas-
kets will be removed, the lower part of the
caskets being so constructed, and the cloth
ing so adjusted, as to permit the freest cir
culatlon Of air about 10 every portion of
the body. BY this treatment it is claimed
that the remains will become naturally
desiccated or dried up, the fluids which con-
stitute three-fourths OF the bulk of the
human body passing off to the furnace and
being consumed, leaving the boxes and
tiberS intact with the skin still drawn over
them, giving the outline and features of
the body as parchment is stretched over
mold.
DR.. Snively. ex-physician of the Board
of Health of Pittsburg, was seen by Dis
patch reporter, and said: at is good
plan; yes, it is an excellent plan. We all
know of the contamination of water, the
propagation of disease germs and the
other objections to the usual modes of
burial in the ground; but no remedy has
heretofore been offered. The people can
never be educated to cremation. 1t covers
up all traces of foul play, is contrary
to the religious views Of the peo-
pie, and can never become
popular. The proposed method is
perfectly natural; no chemicals or other
foreign means are needed to dispose
of the body. The fatty substance merely
wastes away in a natural way, the only
difference being that the decomposed gases
and vapor are carried away and consumed,
instead of being confined and at last burst
ing their bounds and permeatipg the soil
and the air OF our cities with the breath
of death
'The method cannot be offensive or re-
voting. There is nothing to make it so.
The body goes through the changes by a
natural method, and the tissue is vaporized
by the air-the breath of God. 1t is much
more revolving, indeed to think of the
body lying in the grave rotting and often
bursting with the decomposed gases"
The doctor here paused in the conyersa-
ton, and going to closet brought and
handed to the reporter human arm all
shriyeied up. THAT" he said, sis the arm
of girl who died ten years ago. | was
dissecting the body when | was at college.
l had taken the cutiele off the arm and
separated the veins and arteries, and then
laid it aside on the table and turned to
other work. 1t lay there for some time
neglected. At last l happened to notice
that no offensive odor came from it, and
that it was dried up. The girl had died
of consumption and was very much ema-
ciated, and there was hardly any flesh
on the arm; but what was left was dried
up, leaving the bones, tendons, muscles,
nails, arteries, etc., intact, and if the skin
had been left on the arm would now have
no appearance of death, except that the
skin would be like parchment, and the
shape would be perfectly preserved.
''The arm, as You see, has no odor. The
tendous are still moist, as though they
had been oiled, and this has probably kept
the arm from molding."
DR.. McKelvy also thought the plan a
good one. He said that the high prices
paid for lots in cemeteries ought to pay the
expense Of burial in a mausoleum, and the
large surplus in the tres sury of the Ale
gheny Cemetery Company, and its large
capitalization proves such an undertaking
to be feasible, though it would, of course,
require immense capital.
L. II g.. IA