366 



MIRACULOUS CURES. 



may be very excellent, yet the name may sur- 

 pass the reality, in bringing about the desired 

 end. The miracles of Our Lady of the O. are 

 performed in three ways — by prayer from the 

 patient, — by drinking the water of the spring, 

 or by application of some of it to the part affect- 

 ed, — and by eating, or outwardly applying, a 

 small quantity of the salt which oozes from the 

 wall against which the High Altar stands. * A 



* I insert the following passage from No. 32d of Dr. 

 Thomson's Annals of Philosophy, p. 138. It is given for 

 the purpose of acquainting the supporters of our Lady of the 

 O., that salt oozes from walls in an heretical, as well as in a 

 Catholic country : 



" The formation of nitre upon calcareous stones in certain 

 situations has been long known, and advantage has been 

 taken of it to procure that important salt in great quantities; 

 though no satisfactory theory of the formation of the salt 

 itself has yet been offered to the public. The present paper 

 contains a set of observations on the appearance of an efflor- 

 escence of salt-petre on the walls of the Ashmole laboratory 

 at Oxford, a large ground room, sunk below the area of the 

 street. The walls are built of Oxford lime-stone, a granular 

 floetz lime-stone, containing many fragments of shells, of 

 vegetable bodies, and composed of 96 carbonate of lime, and 

 4 of ochrey sand. The salt formed was nearly pure, though 

 it contained traces of lime and of sulphuric and muriatic 

 acids. What was formed in winter contained most lime. 

 The formation of this salt was most rapid in frosty weather ; 

 it formed slowly, and the quantity even diminished in moist 

 weather after it had been deposited. Exclusion from the 

 air did not preclude the deposition of the salt, though it di- 

 minished it considerably." P. 70. — The paper, of which the 

 above is an analysis, is by John Kidd, M.D. professor of 

 chemistry in Oxford. 



