e
assurance doubly sure, several carefully-conducted experiments have been
made, under the supervision of the directors of the New Mausoleum
movement, that prove that the conditions of desiccation can be
controlled and that decomposition can be prevented, that where it has
begun it can be stayed, and that prolonged preservation, with a fair
approximation to the appearance in life, can be made sure for the
recognition of absent friends, for transportation or the furtherance of
the ends of justice.

When, now, it is added that desiccation has been ascertained to be an
efficient agent in the destruction of disease germs, as proved by the
experiments of Dr. Sternberg, of the Hoagland Laboratory, and by the
investigations of other experts, enough seems to have been said to
establish the truth of the assertion that entombment can be made
sanitary, and that, therefore, entombment offers the satisfactory
solution of the problem how to dispose of the dead so as to do no
violence to a reverent and tender sentiment, and at the same time not to
imperil the public health.

The proposition, then, soon to be submitted for public approval is this:
to erect in the suburbs of our large towns and cities, perhaps even in
their most thickly-populated parts, extensive and handsome edifices that
will provide sanitary Sepulchres for the dead. To be comparatively
inexpensive, they will have to be comparatively plain, and it seems not
too much to hope that our cities will soon adopt this mode of disposing
of the dead that depend upon the public care for burial, and that the
horrors of a "Potter's Field," of which it cannot be divested, even in a
fair and sea-girt isle, may be forevermore unknown of men....

Within there would be, as the unit of construction, each sepulchre so
constructed that anhydrous air could enter, or could be made to enter
and withdraw, laden with moisture and morbific matter, which it would
convey to a separate structure, where a furnace would complete the
sanitary work that the anhydrous air had begun, and return to the
external atmosphere nothing that would be noxious. Each sepulchre, in
itself and its surroundings, would appear to provide a place of repose,
and would have electrical appliances attached to it for the instant
indication of the return of consciousness to any who had been
prematurely entombed, and would promise and provide the most perfect and
permanent protection against intrusion or theft that can be f