On the 26th of August, 1854, at Herrnlauersitz (Guhrauer Kreis) more than 100 corpses were washed out of their graves by an inundation. Many of them remained in their coffins. They were found afterward in gardens, yards, fields, in the woods, and even in houses, whither they had floated. Sixteen days passed before the bodies were all collected; some were recovered whole, others in parts; then they were buried in one large pit forever (?), as the officiating clergyman announced.
“I was long since cured of a belief in earth burial,” says a very intelligent army officer, “by an appalling sight I witnessed when going down the Mississippi. There had been a great freshet, during which the river had so changed its course as to invade a cemetery and dislodge its occupants, who, in various stages of decomposition—the coffins having rotted or been torn asunder by the torrent—were floating down the stream. It was a ghastly spectacle.”
I don’t think that the people along the banks of the mighty river were particularly edified with the sight. And if, at the time, they would have known of some other mode of disposing of the dead, I am sure they would have adopted it without hesitation.
A similar occurrence happened at Kansas City, Mo., in February, 1886. The Missouri River being blocked by ice, caused the channel to rise and sweep the lower part of an island away that lies opposite the city, and upon which is the small-pox hospital. About 20 graves were in this part of the island; they were opened by the flood and the corpses that had been interred in them swam down the river in their coffins. These bodies had been buried only since one year. The people on both sides of the Missouri, from which the city derives its water-supply, were quite agitated over this affair.
At the same time the cemetery at Copiano, Chili, was inundated; many of the vaults were full of water and the coffins were floating around, while many of the common graves had been completely cleared of their contents.
The most horrible feature of the situation was that the water which flows from the cemetery goes into the river which supplies the inhabitants with water for domestic purposes.
The Quarterly Review (No. XLII, p. 380) states:—
“Many tons of human bones every year are sent from London to the North, where they are crushed in mills constructed for the purpose, and used as manure!”
And a correspondent of the Times writes to his journal from Alexandria:—
“The other day at Sakhara, I saw nine camels pacing down from the mummy pits to the bank of the river, laden with nets in which were femora, tibia, and other bony bits of the human form, some two hundred-weight in each net, on each side of the camel. Among the pits there were people busily engaged in searching out, sifting, and sorting the bones which almost crust the ground. On inquiry, I learned that the cargoes with which the camels were laden would be sent down to Alexandria, and thence be shipped to English manufacturers. They make excellent manure, I am told, particularly for Swedes and other turnips. The trade is brisk and has been for years, and may go on for many more. It is a strange fate to preserve one’s skeleton for thousands of years, in order that there may be fine southdowns and cheviots in a distant land!”