§ 188.9. =Discoveries of Relics.=--The Roman catacombs continued still to supply the demand for relics of the saints for newly erected altars. Toward the end of A.D. 1870 the Archbishop of St. Iago de Compostella (§ 88, 4) made excavations in the crypt of his cathedral, in consequence of an old tradition that the bones of the Apostle James the Elder, the supposed founder of the church, had been deposited there, and he succeeded in discovering a stone coffin with remains of a skeleton. The report of this made to Pius IX. gave occasion to the appointment of a commission of seven cardinals, who, after years of minute examination of all confirmatory historical, archæological, anatomical, and local questions, submitted their report to Leo XIII., whereupon, in November, 1884, he issued an “Apostolic Brief,” by which he (without publishing the report) declared the unmistakable genuineness of the discovered bones as _ex constanti et pervulgato apud omnes sermone jam ab Apostolorum ætate memoriæ prodita_, pronounced the relics generally _perennes fontes_, from which the _dona cælestia_ flow forth like brooks among the Christian nations, and calls attention to the fact that it is just in this century, in which the power of darkness has risen up in conflict against the Lord and his Christ, these and also many other relics “_divinitus_” have been discovered, as _e.g._ the bones of St. Francis, of St. Clara, of Bishop Ambrose, of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, of the Apostles Philip and James the Less, the genuineness of which had been avouched by his predecessors Pius VII. and Pius IX. § 188.10. =The blood of St. Januarius=, a martyr of the age of Diocletian, liquefies thrice a year for eight days, and on occasion of earthquakes and such-like calamities in Naples, the blood is brought in two vials by a matron near to the head of the saint; if it liquefies the sign is favourable to the Neapolitans, if it remains thick unfavourable; but in either case it forms a powerful means of agitation in the hands of the clergy. Unbelievers venture to suggest that this _precioso sangue del taumaturgo S. Gennaro_ is not blood, but a mixture that becomes liquid by the warmth of the hand and the heat of the air in the crowded room, some sort of cetaceous product coloured red.