HOW SOON A CORPSE DECAYS.
Mr. Lewis, of the General Board of Health, from his examination of the contents of nearly 100 coffins in the vaults and catacombs of London churches, concludes that the complete decomposition of a corpse, and its resolution into its ultimate elements, takes place in a leaden coffin with extreme slowness. In a wooden coffin the remains, with the exception of the bones, vanish in from two to five years. This period depends upon the quality of the wood, and the free access of air to the coffins. But in leaden coffins, 50, 60, 80, and even 100 years are required to accomplish this. “I have opened,” says Mr. Lewis, “a coffin in which the corpse had been placed for nearly a century; and the ammoniacal gas formed dense white fumes when brought in contact with hydrochloric-acid gas, and was so powerful that the head could not remain in it for more than a few seconds at a time.” To render the human body perfectly inert after death, it should be placed in a light wooden coffin, in a pervious soil, from five to eight feet deep.