The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-01

place without detecting the presence. of the cattle To avoid betrayal by lowing, many men were constantly engaged in the feeding of the beasts The only approach to the place is by a crude flight of nat ural rock steps between two companioning boulders.
 They completely fill the crevasse and no carpenter could have constructed a stair way with more mathematical precision than that portrayed by these steps of na- ture. In their ascent I could have at any point touched both sides of the flight with my extended hands.
 Though not strictly in line with the subject it is opportune to speak here of mans assistance or imitation of nature in the fashioning of these pockets of ma ture. They are best represented by the tombs of the Kings at Thebes upon the Nile, and the wonderful catacombs of Eu- rope.
 Of the latter those of St. Calixtus and san Sebastian at Rome and that of Paris are the best types. I have seen all three, and while the most sentiment clusters around St Calixtus the catacombs of Paris are the more wonderful At St.. Calixtus reposed for a long while the remains of St. Cecela, one of the sweet est heroines of martyrology. Here were found those strange monographs or Chris tian cartouches represented in the crude outlines of fish. This was simple enough, but it portrayed much The sym bol was embodied in the initials repre- sented in the letters of the Greek word for fish-ichtheus-and were Jesu Christus, Son of God, Saviour. Here also originated the sacred and mysterious veroncas.
 It will be remembered that when the Man of Sorrow was hustled and derided by the mob in his journey through the Via Dolorosa en route to his crucifixion, a good woman named Veronica rushed from her dwelling and wiped his yisage with a napkin or towel and tradition has it that upon returning to her domicile she found an impress of the divine face upon the cloth. Centuries afterward many of these veronicas, as they were called, were found and to every one of them was at tributed a most miraculous origin. This claim was religiously accepted by the ig- norant and fanatical, but the truth is they were simply face cloths found in the catacombs upon which was painted a face of Christus The catacombs of Paris are truly wonderful, both as to the extensive area and numerous ramifications whicf they embrace and the marvellous disposi- ton of the bones. A great drawback tc visiting them is the long distance one IS compelled to traverse underground be- fore reaching the bones of the inmates These bones are arranged in long heaps like cord wood and surmounted by lay CTS of skulls. Visitors purchase candles at the entrance. but I have seen some of the guides using a skull as lantern 6 rather gruesome bit of pleasantly.
 The number of skeletons is, said to pass the million mark.
 Not only into the ground and rock has man burrowed in making pockets of ths earth but he has done some very clever work in tunnelling into the ice.
 Up until few years ago the most won derful specimen of his skill in this di rection was to be found in the ice srotte at Grindelwald. The interior presented { most weird and picturesque effect. The light of the torches penetrated the tct