To this constant tendency constant testimony is borne by
the massive and magnificent tombs in which India abounds, the tombs and
pyramids that make marvellous the land of the Nile, the tombs that stood
thick upon the Appian Way, and that rose superb upon the Tiber's shore,
the modern use to which the Pantheon is put, the Pantheon at Paris and
the Crypt of the Invalides, the Abbey of Westminster, matchless in
memorials, the sepulchres within the hills that gird Jerusalem, and the
sepulchre in which the Nazarene was gently laid when His agony was
ended.
It remains to be considered whether entombment can be made sanitary. If
it can be the problem is solved, for entombment has ever been the best
that the living could do for their dead, and, with the added advantage
of promoting, or ceasing to be prejudicial to, the public health
entombment will be the choice of all whom cost or caprice does not
deter.
That entombment can be made sanitary is evident from the fact that in
countless instances, in many lands and through long periods of time, it
has been made sanitary by the ingenuity of man or by unassisted nature;
and it is also evident from the fact that decomposition and disease
germs are the dangers to be guarded against, and that against these both
ancient and modern science have been able to guard. Not to enumerate all
the modes that have been chanced upon or that have been devised by men,
there are two that have been notable and are available for modern
use--embalming and desiccation.
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