If you should fill a gasometer half way up with solid granite masonry, then drive a wide and deep well down through the center of this mass of masonry, you would have the idea of a Tower of Silence.

On the masonry surrounding the well the bodies lie, in shallow trenches which radiate like wheel-spokes from the well.

The trenches slant toward the well and carry into it the rainfall.
Underground drains, with charcoal filters in them, carry off this water from the bottom of the well.
When a skeleton has lain in the Tower exposed to the rain and the flaming sun a month it is perfectly dry and clean.

Then the same bearers that brought it there come gloved and take it up with tongs and throw it into the well.

There it turns to dust.