J. Stanley MacMillan, age 12, of Alexandria, Ont., for his question:

Where are the catacombs?

The word catacombs brims to mind the days when the early Christians were in hiding from the tyranny of Rome. Then, as sometimes now, people tended to avoid cemeteries, especially at night. The cemeteries of pagan Rome were tunnels and passageways hewn deep into the underground rock. It was in these tunnels that the early Christians hid.

The burial chambers under St. Sebastiants, near Rome, and under other churches in and near Rome, are known as catacombs. So are burial tunnels in Naples and Alexandria. The most famous of the catacombs were those along the Appian tray, where the early Christians sought refuge from the Roman scourge.