s very likely that Erwin and his family were buried there. When
some years ago, they were digging a waste-well for the lightning
conductor, they discovered an old coffin of stone, broken and
filled with earth and bones. All these remains with the exception
of some fragments taken away by some curious amateurs, were
deposited in a vault.

We shall add one word more on the _foundations_ of the Cathedral.
Every one knows the old story, according to which this edifice
rests on piles, between each of which it were possible to go in
boats on canals extending even under the place Gutenberg. As far
back as the seventeenth century, they dug to a considerable
depth, and have since several times renewed the experiments, to
ascertain the nature of the foundations, that have been found to
lie very deep and to be very solid, formed of masonry reposing on
clay mixed with gravel; under a portion of the nave this bottom
is reinforced by oaken piles.

Through a door on the right of saint Catharine's chapel you enter
the area of the workhouse of the stone-cutters of the Cathedral
(_Steinhuette_). These workmen, even to this day form a particular
corporation that seems to have originated in the days of Erwin of
Steinbach; at all events it is a certain fact that the masons of
the Cathedral were from the beginning a body, distinct from the
ordinary masons; that they have not admitted among them every
one who presented himself, and that they had secret signs to know
one another. This (_loge_) society of the masons of the Cathedral
has become the cause of many others in Germany; Dotzinger, the
successor of John Hueltz as architect of this church, united them
all in one body; a general meeting of the masters or chiefs of
the different _loges_, held at Ratisbon in 1459, adopted certain
rules and regulations, and chose as their grand-masters the
architects of the Cathedral of Strasburg, where the principal
loge or lodge (_Haupthuette_) was established. Maximilian I
confirmed the establishment and the rules of this corporation on
the 3d October 1498. At the beginning of the eighteenth century
it was transferred to Mayence.

It has already been stated that at a very remote period the
Cathedral had received rich and important donations composing the
_[OE]uvre-Notre-Dame_, the revenues of which were originally
under the direction of the bishops; but as they squandered them
away "leaving the building to decay," the chapter assumed their