A powerful reverberating-furnace will reduce a body of more than average size and weight, leaving only a few white and fragile portions of earthy material, in less than one hour. I have myself personally superintended the burning of two entire bodies, one small and emaciated, of 47 lbs. weight, and one of 144 lbs. weight, not emaciated, and possess the products--in the former case weighing 1¾ lb.; in the latter, weighing about 4 lbs. The former was completed in twenty-five minutes, the latter in fifty. No trace of odour was perceived--indeed, such a thing is impossible--and not the slightest difficulty presented itself. The remains already described were not withdrawn till the process was complete; and nothing can be more pure, tested by sight or smell, than they are; and nothing less suggestive of decay or decomposition. It is a refined sublimate, and not a portion of refuse, which I have before me. The experiment took place in the presence of several persons. Among the witnesses of the second experiment was Dr. George Buchanan, the well-known medical officer of the Local Government Board, who can testify to the completeness of the process. In the proceeding above described, the gases which leave the furnace-chimney during the first three or four minutes of combustion are noxious; after that they cease to be so, and no smoke would be seen. But these noxious gases are not to be permitted to escape by any chimney, and will pass through a flue into a second furnace, where they are entirely consumed; and the chimney of the latter is smokeless--no organic products whatever can issue by it. A complete combustion is thus attained. Not even a tall chimney is necessary, which might be pointed at as that which marked the site where cremation is performed. A small jet of steam, quickening the draught of a low chimney, is all that is requisite. If the process is required on a large scale, the second furnace could be utilised for cremation also, and its product passed through another, and so on without limit. This plan, however, has been thrown into the shade by subsequent experiments:--