Everyone dies. For thousands of years, uncountable millions of corpses have been given funerals, and the living have always been faced with the problems of valedictory ceremonials for the dead and what to do with the corpses. Most of them have been buried, burnt, preserved, put in the sea, or exposed to the air. Quicklime, acids, eating and shrinking are more rare, and on the whole the overtly scientific methods go with unnatural death, so that earth, air, fire, and water are the most common agents of disposal.--pg. 9.