From India cremation extended to Europe, and was adopted by all Indo-Germanic peoples. This was proven by Prof. Jacob Grimm in an oration on the burning of the dead, delivered before the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, in 1849, in which the famous scholar highly commended the ancient custom. In old tombs on the island of Malta, urns of a kind of clay containing ashes, lachrymatories, several mortuary lamps (some of excellent workmanship), and the model of a mummy, formed of a green semi-transparent substance, were found. This discovery demonstrates that the orientals who inhabited this isle of the Mediterranean in the earliest times were in the habit of cremating their deceased. The Thracians were the next to embrace burial by fire. Of them _Herodotus_ relates that they exhibited the corpse publicly for three days, brought many offerings, and bewailed the deceased. At the termination of the period stated, they cremated the body and then buried the ashes and bones. After they had erected a mound over the remains, they played gymnic games. From Asia, by way of Thrace, cremation reached Greece. Among the Greeks burial was originally exceedingly primitive, as we learn from a law that compelled passers-by to place a handful of earth upon the breast of every unburied corpse. Interment undoubtedly preceded cremation in Greece. _Heraclitus_ advanced the theory that everything in existence was created from fire. Therefore he argued that all corpses must be burned to free the soul from all material matter, and to return it to its primitive elements. According to _Eustachius_ Hercules burned the body of Argius, the son of Likymnios, 1500 years before Christ. He had promised the father to return the youth, but when the latter fell in mortal combat, nothing remained for him but to cremate Argius and to bring home with him the ashes to the sorrowful parent. Hercules was unquestionably the first to cremate himself. When he was tormented by the pangs of approaching death, he built a pyre and ordered his servant to ignite it. When the servant failed to set the wood afire, Hercules descended from the pyre, kindled it himself and again mounted it to await his fate. _Pliny_ was disposed to attribute the origin of incineration among the Greeks to their custom of burning the dead on the field of battle, to render them secure from the revenge of the enemy. Be that as it may, certain it is that incineration never became the only mode by which the inhabitants of Hellas disposed of their deceased; except in Athens, where it was practiced exclusively for some time. Suicides, those who had been struck by lightning, and unteethed children were not cremated, for it was the prevailing opinion that the pure flames would have been defiled by them. [Illustration: GREEK FUNERAL URN.]