George Bayles

“ The great problem will be how to make the reduction at once a funeral ceremonial, rapid in execution, and very commendable to those who are bereaved by death. It is especially noticeable that the popular ideas have insensibly gravitated toward the burning of the dead, as the only sure and perfect method of consuming the mortal remains. It is also especially noticeable that cremation, though not without a very ancient history, has never been perfected as a process for the reduction of animal bodies to ashes. ”

“ The formation of a mass of carbonate of calcium, not, however, possessing any degree of chemical purity worthy of mention, but sufficient for a specific mineralogical identification, and for the purpose of easy reduction to atoms by pulverization, deliquescence, or solution, would not be a difficult, expensive, or very tedious operation for the practical chemist. The reduction of the mass of carbonate of calcium into lime, and carbonic anhydride, would be a matter of the very easiest execution. It requires only heat to full redness in open vessels. ”

“ In the interests of sentiment, personal preferences, and economy, why might not scientific men suggest other ways of reducing the dead body than by means of fire? Has modern chemistry no resources? Have our electrologists no practical ideas to present? ”

“ A SUBJECT upon which much earnest thought is concentred is, that method of disposing of the dead which shall be in strict accord with Nature's fixed intentions, and which shall not be delayed, by artificial means, to the obvious detriment of our plainest sanitary necessities. ”

“ The scientific protest is not against the tribute of respect bestowed by sorrowing friends, let it be expressed in ever so many and ofttimes grotesque ways, while the body remains among the living, but, as it can so remain only a very brief period, the scientific protest is against all that in our modern times and civilized communities follows the social leave-taking of the dead. ”

“ In a body weighing 154 pounds, not less than 110 pounds are water. Water, in any appreciable quantity, not becoming a constituent of our imagined necro-lithos, we see, at once, what an enormous reduction of bulk and actual weight the proposed process experiences. Therefore, no cognizance need be taken of the water of the body as a factor requiring special attention, its elimination being inevitable, and all the better, for it would have to be driven off by heat and evaporation, if it did not withdraw itself spontaneously. ”

“ No available progress can be made in moulding public taste and opinion upon this subject until scientific men are prepared to offer some economical and effectual method which shall be decorous and quick for reducing the body to the minimum of material bulk—in a word, to ashes or dust. ”

“ To effect this conversion of the body, which, at the outset of the operation, possesses the carbon element in sufficient abundance to be capable of almost any definite union under favorable circumstances, would require immersion in solutions which it would be easy to formulate and prepare, for any one under the inspiration of chemical experience and practical genius. ”

“ No methods yet advanced and advocated could be of universal adaptability, for the one simple reason, if no other, that they have highly-technical features of manipulation that could not commonly be commanded. ”