SALT WORKS. 35 



very deliberately at first, but as our courage rose our speed increased, 

 and it certainly was not two minutes before we were all safely landed 

 at the foot of the slide, three hundred and fifty feet from the launching 

 point. We now took to our feet again and passed along for some dis- 

 tance through a horizontal shaft, cut through a rock impregnated with 

 salt. The guide told us the rock grew. As we seemed disposed to ques- 

 tion the truth of his assertion he directed our attention to an old shaft, 

 that had once been as large as the one we were then passing through, 

 but not being used for many years its sides had gradually approached 

 each other until nothing but a narrow crevice remained. The galleries 

 through the salt rock are for this reason cased with beams of wood in 

 many places, notwithstanding which they are constantly diminishing in 

 height and width and must be trimmed out occasionally. 



We stopped to observe a miner at work. He had just commenced a 

 new shaft, at right angles to the one we were traversing. It was scarce 

 two feet wide and but five high ; he had driven it perhaps eight feet. 

 There he stood, in that narrow cell, with his lamp beside him, picking 

 away the rock with a mattock ; — such an atmosphere ! The poor fel- 

 low had nothing on but a pair of pantaloons, and the perspiration was 

 streaming from him. Tioo hundred men are employed here in this way ; 

 they work six hours in the twenty-four, relieving each other in compa- 

 nies of fifty. Their wages are sixteen cents a day, (20 Kreuzers.) 



Another inclined plane 390 feet long, at a somewhat steeper angle, 

 viz. 45|°, brought us to another horizontal gallery or shaft that soon 

 widened into the Chapel of the Virgin^ a room perhaps twelve feet 

 square, with an altar upon which lights are constantly kept burning. 

 A fountain of fresh water here slaked our thirst. The stiflTened cap 

 which the miner had induced me to put on was shortly afterwards of 

 essential service. Taller than the rest I was walking along briskly af- 

 ter them when my head came in contact with one of the beams that en- 

 cased the shaft; but for the cap I should have been completely stunned. 



We next slid down the Kcenigsrolle, at an angle of 371°, and struck 

 off immediately into a shaft where our progress was presently interrupt- 

 ed by a flight of steps. Ascending these, a fairy scene bu-^st unexpect- 

 edly upon us .' We stood upon the shore of a subterranean lake bril- 

 liantly illuminated ! Imagine our surprise and delight ! We stood for 

 some moments entranced. A platform with several sofas upon it lay in- 

 vitingly before us upon the water. Scarcely had we taken our seats be- 

 fore the whole affair began to move ofi^ and we found ourselves leaving 

 the shore, by what agency we could not tell. Overhead, w ithin reach 

 when filanding upon this apparently automatic platforrn, was an unsup- 



