The question now arose where the bones to be displaced should be deposited, and, from their proximity to the town and their extent, the ancient quarries were chosen as the most favourable spot for a vast subterranean necropolis. But these immense excavations, which, having been abandoned for several centuries, had in many places fallen in, needed a full year for repairs before they could be safely used for their new purpose. At length, on April 7, 1787, they were solemnly consecrated, and the same day the workmen began to remove the bones from the Cemetery of the Innocents—an operation which needed more than fifteen months for its completion. Gradually many others of the ancient cemeteries of Paris were in like manner removed to the catacombs, so that they are said to contain the bones of more than three millions of bodies. All these bones are symmetrically piled up along the sides of the galleries; the apophyses of the large thigh and arm bones are disposed in front, so as to make a nearly uniform surface, interrupted from space to space by a row of skulls. Some of the crypts or sepulchral chambers are rather lugubriously decorated with festoons or pyramids of skulls and cross-bones, and many of the stone pillars which support the vaults have likewise received ornaments of the same sexton taste. Sixty- three staircases lead from different parts of the town into the catacombs, and are used by the workmen and agents appointed to take care of the subterranean necropolis; but visitors are admitted only every three months by the entrance at the Barrière du Maine. A descent of ninety steps brings them to a narrow gallery, which conducts them, after several windings to the more roomy vaults where the bones are deposited; and after wandering for some time among these gloomy memorials which are piled up on either side, they finally emerge into daylight through another gallery, similar to the first. No doubt Paris affords many a more pleasant ramble, but hardly one more interesting, or capable of making a deeper impression on the mind. CHAPTER XIX. CAVES CONTAINING REMAINS OF EXTINCT ANIMALS. The Cave Hyena and the Cave Bear—The Cavern of Kirkdale—The Moa Caves in New Zealand—Various Species of Moas—Their enormous size. Besides their picturesque beauty or their solemn grandeur, some caves are extremely interesting as containing the bones of _extinct_ quadrupeds or birds. Unrivalled in point of antiquity by the oldest tombs erected by man, they carry us back to times which, though of comparatively recent date, are still so far removed from the present day as almost to terrify the imagination—for how many ages must have elapsed, and what changes of climate must have taken place, since the hyena or the tiger inhabited the grottoes of northern Europe?