Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1874 — Cremation in Detail. [ARTICLE]

Cremation in Detail.

New York has a German Cremation Society which seems to be determined, to make a practical test of this mode of disposing of the dead, and has been arranging its plans. At a late meeting its President explained the method decided upon. The design is to build a hall with walls of iron sixty by forty-four feet, with a rotunda in the center supported by eight pillars. All light is to be admitted from the top. In the center will be erected an altar for religious ceremony, and upon a large plate in front of the altar the coffin containing the dead will be deposited. On this plate will be an iron coffin, in which the friends might place the body only, or their own coffin if desired. A light composition plate would be attached and screwed to the iron coffin, and every other service performed as in present burials. Especial care is to be taken to prevent manipulation of any kind, and therefore when the burial cefemoniefi are finished the coffin will be made to descend by simple machinery to a car placed on a lower level, while the opening in the floor is automatically closed. The car will be moved under the furnace and the coffin raised by Screws. It will then be subjected to the action of air at a temperature of 1,000 deg. Fahr. The ashes remaining in the coffin will be returned and collected. With these arrangements it is expected that cremation will be complete in an hour and a half; that 250 to 450 pounds of coal oil will be sufficient fuei; and that the expense will be SB. But to these anticipations there are two obstacles. One is the doubt whether a hot blast of 1,000 deg. Fahr. will be sufficient to do more than char a body in so short a time, and the other is the difficulty and cost of obtaining so hot a blast, iron blast furnaces require vast quantities of air, and many of them heat it up to more than 600 deg. Fahr. But 1,000 deg. Fahr. is a temperature that few of them reach, and to obtain it apparatus costing from $30,000 to $75,000 is necessary. This apparatus further requires an outlay of SSO to SIOO a day for heatiug and repairs. What the cost of a smaller amount of, ait at this high temperature may be is a very doubtful problem. Still the German Cremation Society of Neiv York, said to number 450 members, appears to be willing to ascertain it experimentally, and will ask the next Legislature for an act of incorporation. — Galary. She remained talking with a friend on the platform till the cars were well under way, and then made a crazy rush to get on; caught hold of the railing of one car and had to let go, not being able to make the requisite jump; clutched at the side of the car as it passed, and executed a medley of hornpipe and breakdown; caught the hind rail of the car; didn't like it and let go; caught the forward railing of the next car, and being aided by the bystanders, who applied their hands, shoulders, knees and canes to her back, finally landed on the car platform one of the hottest and worst-scared little fat women that ever journeyed.— Sacramento Union. . ‘