“Nevertheless, in view of the evils which in former times have undoubtedly arisen from the practice of intramural sepulture, and also because the erection of houses near a cemetery interferes with the free play of air around and over it, it is desirable that the site of the cemetery should be in a neighbourhood in which building is not likely to take place, and also that so far as practicable a belt of ground should be reserved between the graves and the nearest land on which a house may be built, in order to obviate to some extent the risk of contamination of ground-air and subsoil water with decomposing matters. This is especially necessary where houses are constructed with cellars. It is, therefore, highly desirable that interments should not be made up to the extreme edge of the cemetery, and it would be possible without great waste of space to reserve in all cases a strip of ground free from interments, 15 to 30 feet in width, around the whole cemetery on the interior of the boundary fence. This strip would afford room, on the inside for a gravel or asphalte walk to give access to all parts of the cemetery, and on the outside next the fence to a belt of shrubs or trees, the rootlets of which, penetrating the soil, would arrest and assimilate any decomposing matters percolating to the exterior of the cemetery. Obviously a cemetery should not be placed on elevated ground above houses, where the soakings from it may percolate to the sites and foundations of the dwellings below. . . .” “Sites are of course unsuitable which are liable to be flooded or to landslips, or which are in danger of being washed away, or encroached upon by streams or the sea. Very steep sites are not desirable. The cemetery should be accessible by good roads from all parts of the district.” As to the unsuitability of clay as a soil for cemeteries, Louis Créteur in “Hygiene in the Battle Field” says, that the bodies of soldiers slain during the Battle of Sedan were buried in chalk, quarry rubble, sand, argillite, slate, marl, or clay soils, and the work of disinfection lasted from the beginning of March till the end of June. In rubble the decay had fully taken place, but in the clay the bodies kept well, and even after a very long time the features could be identified.