DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0090
TRAVELS IN UPPER
edge of the instruments employed in detaching it
from the mass. But it is no easy matter to dis-
abuse persons accustomed to explain natural facts
by miracles.
A lichen entirely white grows over the interior
surface of the vault of St. Paul's grotto.
At some distance from the old city are found
vast excavations, which it is easy to dig and to ex-
tend, in a soil which presents very little resistance.
They are divided into numerous ramifications,
multiplied to such a degree that they formed a la-
byrinth, in which a man might lose himself and
perish, had not the precaution been employed of
walling up the entrance of some of those subter-
ranean galleries; they were formerly used as a
place of sepulture, catacombs, the name still given
them. Tombs cf stone are placed in them on each
side, one above another; they are of various sizes;
a dome likewise of stone covers some of them, and
there is great reason to think that they were all en-
closed in the same manner. The part of those
stone-coffins on which the head of the dead per-
son rested, is raised about two inches above the
bottom, and there was cut into it the form of the
head and neck, so that they were enchased in this
species of dead pillow. Somecoffins, broader than
others, presented an excavation for two heads;
affection
edge of the instruments employed in detaching it
from the mass. But it is no easy matter to dis-
abuse persons accustomed to explain natural facts
by miracles.
A lichen entirely white grows over the interior
surface of the vault of St. Paul's grotto.
At some distance from the old city are found
vast excavations, which it is easy to dig and to ex-
tend, in a soil which presents very little resistance.
They are divided into numerous ramifications,
multiplied to such a degree that they formed a la-
byrinth, in which a man might lose himself and
perish, had not the precaution been employed of
walling up the entrance of some of those subter-
ranean galleries; they were formerly used as a
place of sepulture, catacombs, the name still given
them. Tombs cf stone are placed in them on each
side, one above another; they are of various sizes;
a dome likewise of stone covers some of them, and
there is great reason to think that they were all en-
closed in the same manner. The part of those
stone-coffins on which the head of the dead per-
son rested, is raised about two inches above the
bottom, and there was cut into it the form of the
head and neck, so that they were enchased in this
species of dead pillow. Somecoffins, broader than
others, presented an excavation for two heads;
affection