The conditions under which decomposition can take place are a certain degree of moisture and a constant supply of air. When a corpse is embedded in a soil that is very wet, a curious change takes place. There is no decay, but instead a fatty metamorphosis, giving the body a waxy appearance and preserving its original form. The result of this transformation is called adipocere. The process by which the body is changed into this stearine-like mass is entitled saponification, and is not very well understood as yet by the scientists. Such preserved bodies were found in the burial-grounds at Paris, Brussels, London, and many other cities. [Illustration: THE CREMATORIUM AT VARESE. (From Dr. Pini’s work.) ] In 1874, the cemetery board of the burial-ground at Zuerich, Switzerland, discovered that the bodies interred in the graveyard since 1849 had not undergone decomposition, but had turned into adipocere. This horrible discovery materially assisted the progress of incineration in Switzerland. Tripp relates that when eight bodies were taken up in a cemetery near Worcester, England, the soil of which was composed chiefly of gravel and clay that was always very moist and at times so wet that the water had to be pumped out of the graves, the undecayed body of a nineteen-year-old girl was found which had been buried 51 years and had undergone saponification; the other corpses were decomposed, also the coffins, while the casket which had contained the saponified body was preserved. I have seen but one saponified corpse. It was at the museum of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons; I have forgotten whether it was a man or woman. But I still remember how I shuddered at the sight and how I walked close up to the glass case to make sure that the waxy mass within was a human being. It is superfluous to point out here that cremation puts a stop to saponification. One need not be a chemist to know that a body cannot turn into adipocere after it has been reduced to ashes. Whenever the earth of a graveyard yet contains enough oxygen for the corpses deposited there, the dangers are very few; but whenever this is not the case, the bodies of the dead undergo a horrible metamorphosis, known as putrefaction, and become dangerous to the living on account of the poisonous gases and other effluvia generated. We observe the same phenomenon in our stoves. When but very little air is admitted into them, the combustion of even very inflammable material remains incomplete; and stifling gases (for instance, carbonic oxide gas) are produced.