such usage. His reply was nearly in the following words:
"Our prophet Zoroaster, who lived 6,000 years ago, taught us
to regard the elements as symbols of the Deity. Earth, fire,
water, he said, ought never, under any circumstances, to be
defiled by contact with putrefying flesh. Naked, he said,
came we into the world and naked we ought to leave it. But
the decaying particles of our bodies should be dissipated as
rapidly as possible and in such a way that neither Mother
Earth nor the beings she supports should be contaminated in
the slightest degree. In fact, our prophet was the greatest
of health officers, and, following his sanitary laws, we
build our towers on the tops of the hills, above all human
habitations. We spare no expense in constructing them of the
hardest materials, and we expose our putrescent bodies in
open stone receptacles, resting on fourteen feet of solid
granite, not necessarily to be consumed by vultures, but to
be dissipated in the speediest possible manner and without
the possibility of polluting the earth or contaminating a
single being dwelling thereon. God, indeed, sends the
vultures, and, as a matter of fact, these birds do their
appointed work much more expeditiously than millions of
insects would do if we committed our bodies to the ground.
In a sanitary point of view, nothing can be more perfect
than our plan. Even the rain-water which washes our
skeletons is conducted by channels into purifying charcoal.
Here in these five towers rest the bones of all the Parsees
that have lived in Bombay for the last two hundred years. We
form a united body in life and we are united in death."

It would appear that the reasons given for this peculiar mode of