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Show jnlliip'n, and it is also true that about half a ton of coal will be reouired,.to consume each body, of an adult, provided pro-vided the furnace "has to be' specially heated in' each case. Professor Wick-' ier-' apparently: assumes that as much coal is required. . to; ?-,CQn-. ,sume..:.ia.'.: child's, body .las -. adult'sv;which,,-is' ; manifestly, baurd, and ;;. that, whenever ', a .bpdy .a tqi be , cr.emajd , the 'furnace'tias . to. be speciayy lieatedfdr'the occasion. .As a matter' of fact; in the 'large crematories crema-tories i presentUhe furnaces are always al-ways heated ana thus the-amount of coal required' to consume a body is hardly one-tenth 'of what it" would' le WORLD SHORT OF COAL. If Cremation OonUnnM There Will Be a Fuel Famine Some Day.-' The 'American opponents and advo-. advo-. eates of cremation are much interest-, interest-, ed just now in a statement which has ,i! ' eeen made by a distingushed chemist, to the effect ;that; If cremation should ever become a universal practice the world's supply of coal would speedily be exhausted, s: ie New York Herald. Her-ald. This chemist is Professor Clemens Clem-ens Walker of Saxony, and his state-.. state-.. mem is the result of long study on this subject The world's population, he says, consists of about 1,550,000,000 persons, and of these about 31,009,fl0O die every year. Now, if all these bodies bod-ies Were to be cremated the amount of coal which would be used for this purpose pur-pose would, he maintains, be 600 or in round numbers, 15,000.000 ton's. Many years, however, he admits, are. likely to elapse before the entire world decides to substitute cremation for the prevailing method of burial, and therefore, instead of laying stress on what is likely to happen in this far distant time he draws attention to.cer- tain statistics which are of more Immediate Im-mediate "interest. There are, he says, 160 cities' in' the world each, of which has a population exceeding 100,000, and the aggregate 'population of whfch .is S2,000,000N The number ' of deaths, in these' cities amounts' annually . to 1,-640,000, 1,-640,000, and if all .these bodies were to be cremated the .amount of; coal' required re-quired for this purpose' each; , year would be 785,500"tons.' that' such'3 large quantity' of coal should.be consumed con-sumed in this way seems"'to him highly undesirable, and be expresses-the. hope that-encouragement will- not. be. given : to those who are In favor of using for the annihilation of dead bodies. a most valuable material, and , one which, .the living may soon be in need of . H. much of it is consumed in ths 'way. Advocates Advo-cates of cremation in this city do not. agree with Professor-Winkler,' neither does Die Flamme, the representative organ of the European cremation societies. soci-eties. "Admitting," says the. .latter, "that the total population, of. the .160, greatest cities is 82,0000,, it Is Jjulte. true that the average number of deaths each year will be one and two-third under other :circtimstances,-'. c Finally, Die Flamme claims that the amount of coal -which, is now, or :which is likely1 to be, . used in crematories is insignificant insignifi-cant compared with the amount which is used , for industrial ' purposes, and that the value of the coal used an crematories is by no means so great " as the value of the wood used in cof-' 'fins-. ;.'' :' i:, ; :-' -' |
