Having, therefore, established the genuineness of the relic, the next question which presents itself is this:

Are we to attribute the amount of the blood still to be seen within the ampulla when at its ordinary level, and its condition when hard, to the continuous action of natural causes; or are we to recognize in those points the effects of that supernatural force to which the liquefaction itself is to be attributed? Would or would not the agency of natural causes have resulted in a greater reduction of the original volume of the blood, and in a far different condition of the residuum, at the present time?

We know pretty accurately the composition of human blood. The proportions of the several ingredients going to constitute it may vary somewhat according to the health and the food of individuals. Without entering into the refined, and as yet not fully accepted results of the latest qualitative analysis, it will be sufficient to give the following table of the constituents of the healthy blood of man:

serum,869·15
 Water,790·37
 Albumen,67·80
  Oxygen,
  Nitrogen,
  Carbonic acid,10·98
  Extractive matters,
  Salts,
  Coloring matter,
clot,130·85
 Fibrine,2·95
 Hæmatine,2·27
 Globuline,125·63
Blood globules,127·90
1,000·00 1,000·00

Water constitutes nearly four-fifths of the entire quantity. If it be driven off by evaporation, only a dry mass would remain behind.

When blood issues from the veins, it first passes through the process of coagulation, the successive steps of which have been carefully examined. Perfectly liquid as it comes out, the blood soon thickens, through the action of the fibrine it contains, into a firm, elastic, uniform, jelly-like mass. Soon drops of clear, amber-colored fluid begin to exude from the

mass of jelly, and accumulate until the whole mass is divided into two parts—the serum, a transparent, nearly colorless fluid, in which there floats the clot, or crassamentum, a firm, red and opaque mass. In time, the clot is further divided. The fibrine is seen at top, forming a layer of considerable consistence, soft, elastic, tenacious, and of a yellowish white color; the under portion, consisting of the heavier parts of the clot which have gradually settled down to that position, is a red mass, made up chiefly of the blood globules.

Further exposure would by degrees eliminate the aqueous portion by evaporation, and the progress of decomposition would tend to free the gases in the other constituents, and thus still further to diminish the mass. But no experiments, instituted by physicists, can compare, in time at least, with the instances presented to us in the vases of the catacombs. There, traces on the glass still show clearly to what level the blood, or at least the clot, originally reached; and we see what has remained after a lapse of sixteen hundred years—a crust of dry reddish powder adhering to and coating the sides and bottom of the vessel.

Boldetti, however, mentions three instances in which such ampullæ were found in the catacombs containing a residuum of the blood still thick and slightly liquid. And, if we are not mistaken, something similar may be seen in some other vials preserved here and there, and held to contain a portion of the blood of certain martyrs.

The early Christians of Italy gave up the old Roman custom of incremation, or burning the bodies of the dead, and adopted instead the Eastern rite of sepulture. In some instances, at least, they seem to have used spices and ointments, as the