and
not directly under it, this space being occupied by long, perpendicular
flues through which the air--fed through a large horizontal shaft
passing under the furnace--rises. In the chamber of combustion, into
which the body is introduced in its coffin, the destruction was formerly
effected by the aid of the actual flames, and the result was not
completely satisfactory,--the skull was left almost intact and some of
the bones, with a few fatty acids and salts. The attendants gathered
these remnants up with pinchers, brushed the black and greasy residue
from the bones, and placed the whole in a little wooden casket, about
the size of a child's coffin, for final deposit in the columbarium. Now,
by the improved process, the total residue that issues from the furnace
is a quantity of white ashes, varying from nine hundred to twelve
hundred grammes in weight, although the flame is no longer permitted to
reach the body and the combustion is effected by refraction alone. A
curious detail in both operations is that the liver is the last of the
organs to be destroyed, and remains an incandescent mass when all the
rest of the body has disappeared.

[Illustration: UNDERGROUND PARIS: ARCH OF THE GREAT SEWER, UNDER THE RUE
ROYALE, CORNER OF THE RUE DE RIVOLI.

After a drawing by A. Montader.]

In the funerary chamber, in which the mourners assemble, in the second
story, the coffin is received by the attendants, placed on a metallic
chariot, running on rails, the long shafts or extensions of which carry
it, with its contents, directly into the fiery heart of the furnace and
there deposit it. The time required for the complete combustion is, at
present, twenty-five minutes for a child, and fifty-five for an adult.
An urn of a peculiar model is now provided for the reception of the
ashes, and this can be either buried in the family vault or placed in
one of the cells of the municipal columbarium, erected in 1895. Although
this latter receptacle does not, as yet, meet with much favor, and has
been irreverently compared by one of the apostles of cremation to a
shed, it might be made a very neat and unobjectionable mausoleum. At
present, it is a species of lofty white marble arcade, or porch, the
wall side of which is filled up with cells about two feet square, the
panels closing which bear the name and dates of the occupant. This
panelled white marble wall is, however, defaced by the black wreaths,
beadwork, and artificial flowers whi