You must know that these many years I have been cherishing the idea of building a laboratory in the large garden beside this house, for the purpose of chemical experiments for which I have a taste.

Last Thursday the excavation for the cellar was at last begun.
It was completed by that night, and Friday the masons were to have come.

Thursday night we had a tremendous deluge of rain, and Friday morning I found my cellar a frog-pond and the walls quite washed down.
My daughter, who had come out to view the disaster with me, called my attention to a corner of masonry laid bare by the crumbling away of one of the walls.

I cleared a little earth from it, and, finding that it seemed part of a large mass, determined to investigate it.

The workmen I sent for unearthed an oblong vault some eight feet below the surface, and set in the corner of what had evidently been the foundation walls of an ancient house.