Arizona weekly enterprise., 1889-03-30

ANCIENT AND MODERN CENS.
 And so in the United States today urns of CarthenWaTe are exclusively used after incincrations. The potters of East Liv- erpool have q separate line of apparatus for their manufacture, and put into the vessels the very best kind of materials. so that they may be preserved an in definite length of time. Care is taken to have the fastenings for tho covering perfectly air tight. Two designs of urns are made for the trade. One is wholly plain, the other is ornGmented with flourish lines, the representation of ivy leaves, or, in a few instances, with scrip tural figures. These varieties are in tended to suit the different intentions of keeping the urn in the houses of the liv- ing, inclosing it in the vaults in the cemeteries, or interring it i'll ordinary graves. All three methods of final dis position are pursued in this country One very rich and influential family, for merly residents of this city, keep the urn containing the ashes of the father wrapped in an American flag and sitting upon the top of his old secretary in the library. The ashes of others who have been cremated in Pittsburg have been simply buried in the graveyards or placed in mausoleums. There used to be a custom among the Digger Indians of scattering the ashes to the winds, or to smear them with gum upon the heads of the mourners. But among civilized peo- pie the urn is the symbol of refinement, even in doctrine that is questionable to many.
 THE COST OF NORTHAMPTON.
 These potteries of East Liverpool arebut a short distance across the country from the first crematOry ever erected in the United States. That is at Washington Pa., only thirty miles from St. Pittsburg. It was put up by Dr. Julius Le MOyne not more than twelve years ago. For two years aftcrward the incinerations which were conducted there attracted wide spread attention on the subjects being brought from prominent families all over the country. So rapidly has cremation progressed in favor of Americans since then that today there are furnaces in operation at Lancaster, Pa, Buffalo, N Y., and Pittsburg, Pa. One society, which has also erected q crematory at l Fresh Pond, L. l., has about geo mem bers. Similar societies exist in nearly all the large cities, and so common have incinerations become that half of them I are never heard of. The use of natural gas in burning the body at the furnace 1 in Pittsburg has so largely reduced the cost of an incineration and the attendant | ceremonies that expense is. now no | hindrance to the method, at least in this | city. In other places, where they have i not got the wonderful fuel we have, the cost, although higher, docs rot exceed i S7 fer the incineration and S45 for the | whole service. It is said, however, that in JaDan the natives have reduced the cost to sl.
 EGYPTIAN VASES.
 As ;ntimatcd above, the most prevalent material in all ages for vases for the ashes of the dead has generally beer baked clay. Multitudes of Greek sepul chral urns have, after a lapse of more than fifteen centuries, been brought tC light at time when learned men car appreciate them and gather from then valuable information in history anC archaeology. Egyptians made thest earthen vases at such early times tha they are contemporary with the pyramid themselves But the most renlarkabl, Egyptian pottery for burial purposes wa tho so called porcelain, made of fint sand, or frit, loosely fused together, an( covered with a thick silicious glaze o blue, green, white, purple or yellow color. Objects were not only made Ou of this material for the dead, but for tn toilet of the living. too. But for the frs object they were used most. They wer exported from Egypt to the neighborinl countries. and are found alike in tn tombs of the Greek isles. the sepulcher of EtrU,ria and the graves of Greece Most of the figures of deities, the sepul } chrai ones deposited with the dead, an a few vases for household purposes wer made of this porcelain It was at a late period that figures of deities wer modelled in terra cotta. The objects mos remarkable in this material for size ar the large collins found at Warka (sul posed by some to be the Ur of the Cha
 dees) with oval covers, and ornament of the Sassanian period. -Pittsburg Col St. Louis Globe Democrat.