A MYSTERY VAULT.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 19

A MYSTERY VAULT.

—_—. PRESERVATION OF BODIKS ____ A visit to the vault of St. Michael's Church, Dublin. Is an eerie experience. It Is a death chamber in which bodies laid to rest hundreds of years ago may still be seen. Seme are in open coffins, seme laid out on the stone"; and all aie in a state of perfect preservation. Tbi atmos phcre of the vault la fresh and sweet, and absolutely dry. The only living organisms to be found are huge spiders; no other form of animal life can exist in the vault for more than a short time. No one knows how the spiders subsist, or on what they feed, but the webs they have spun through tbe centuries are left untouched. No attempt is made to exclude the outer air, and visitors are admitted freely to •view the bodies. Scientists have experimented by air analysis and other tests, but no satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon is forthcoming. It is clear that the vault contains some property Which is destructive to the germs of decay ; but what that property is remains a secret. That it is possible lo introduce such germs is proved by tbe fact that a bunch of flowers, placed by a visitor on one of the coffins, resulted in the decay of „« body it contained.