But this ampulla has not been lying in the low and equable temperature of an underground vault of the catacombs. It has been preserved in the upper and variable atmosphere of a city, subject for many centuries to the excessive heats of almost tropical summers, and to the cold winds that blow down at times from mountains covered with snow. By no law of physics could a mass of blood so situated escape the natural consequence--a vast diminution of bulk by the loss of water and the escape of gases. The film that coats the interior of the smaller ampulla seen in the same case or reliquary, so like the film seen in the whole and in the broken ampullæ of the catacombs and churches generally, shows, we think, what would have been the natural course. That the larger ampulla should, on the contrary, have lost nothing in the volume of its contents--that it should still be four-fifths filled, although for centuries exposed, as we have said, to heat and cold--that this general permanence of bulk and of character should be maintained, although eighteen or twenty times a year the mass alternates from a solid to a fluid condition, and passes through many subordinate changes of color and volume--these facts seem to us not only utterly inexplicable, but directly contrary to all we know of physical laws. We place them along side the grand fact of the liquefaction itself, as being in some measure its characteristic concomitants. Still, should any one deem these questions too obscure to be peremptorily decided, we shall not now discuss them. We are quite willing to let them stand or fall with the more prominent and important and more tangible question of the liquefaction itself. Of that we shall now proceed to treat. TO BE CONTINUED. ---------- THE WAYSIDE SPRING. 213 FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. As here is quaffed a sweet forgetfulness Of the long journey yet to go, So unto all who through life’s pathways press, Lord, from thy rock let waters flow! Let thy sweet grace refreshment be! On earth we wander wearily, And in a thirst that will not cease. Oh! let each dry and dusty lip From thy deep hidden fountain sip Sweet draughts of love and peace. Ah! every soul drinks its own cup of bliss. Some the delights of glory bless; One finds it in a little daughter’s kiss, Another in a wife’s caress. The secret friendships of the heart, The rapture of creative art, Each hive its own sweet honey stores; To every lip let torrents burst From life’s great fount; but I--_I_ thirst For the eternal shores.