tions through which one may walk or go in boats! They are only for the discharge of rain or other water, and nothing noxious is allowed to run into them. The contents of these drains were originally discharged into the Seine close to the Boulevard de Sevastapol, but this connexion has been stopped, and the water is now discharged, several miles down the river. As we walked through these drains, each with a lantern in his hand, and saw the long lines of subterranean passages running in all directions under the town, we were struck with wonder. The greater portion of this drainage system was done under Napoleon III.
The Catacombs are still more remarkable. These vast underground galleries were formerly quarries of soft limestone. Catacombs.As the stone was quarried from age to age for building purposes, the underground excavations increased in size, until they undermined an entire district! In 1784, the Government finding the quarries were unsafe caused piers and buttresses to be erected to support the roof, and shortly afterwards transferred into these galleries all the bones from the "Cemetery of the Innocents" which was then closed. And thenceforward the galleries were called catacombs and were used as such. Thousands of bodies were thrown in here pell mell during the French Revolution, and were arranged subsequently, in 1810. The skull of the celebrated Madame de Pompadour was thrown in here during the Reign of Terror. Bones from other churchyards have since been from time to time removed to this wonderful depository of human remains.
