48 



WIELICZKAWIG. 



a pendant. A uniform edition of bis works was 

 published at Leipsic, in two editions, 4 to. and 8vo., 

 36 vols., with six supplementary volumes, 1794, et 

 seq. (new edition by Graber, begun in 1820 ; a 

 pocket edition, in IGino., 51 vols., was begun in 

 1824). The author was enabled, by the sale of this 

 edition of his works, to buy an estate, called Os- 

 mannstadt, near Weimar, where he intended to 

 spend the evening of his life. As his manner of 

 living was simple, his moderate income was ade- 

 quate to his wants, though his wife bore him four- 

 teen children within twenty years. From 1798 to 

 1803, he continually lived in Osmannstadt, and oc- 

 cupied himself with literary labours, among which 

 his Attic Museum should be mentioned. Aristip- 

 pus and some of his Contemporaries also belongs 

 to this period. In 1803, he sold his estate, from 

 views of economy, and lived again in Weimar, 

 where he now found Schiller, with whom he soon 

 became intimate. After the death of the duchess 

 Arnalia, of Schiller, and many of his other friends, 

 he sought to divert his melancholy by literary la- 

 bours. We owe to this circumstance his transla- 

 tion of Cicero's Letters. The emperor Alexander 

 gave him the order of St Anne, and Napoleon that 

 of the legion of honour. He was elected a member 

 of the French institute, and died Jan. 20, 1813: 

 his wife had died in 1801. The remains of both 

 rest in the same tomb, which bears an inscription, 

 composed by Wieland himself, commemorative of 

 the love which had united them throughout life. 

 Wieland became, at a late period of his life, a free- 

 mason. 



WIELICZKA; a town of Austrian Poland, in 

 the kingdom of Galicia, seven miles south-east of 

 Cracow, remarkable for its salt mines, which extend 

 not only under the town, but to a considerable dis- 

 tance on each side. The mines were worked as 

 early as the middle of the thirteenth century ; but, 

 notwithstanding the quantity of salt which has 

 been taken out, their treasures appear as inexhaus- 

 tible as ever. They are situated at the outskirts 

 of the Carpathian mountains, and descend to the 

 depth of about fifteen hundred feet. The miners 

 commonly go down on ladders ; but the visitor may 

 have the accommodation of regular stairs cut in the 

 salt. At a depth of three hundred feet on the first 

 floor, is St Anthony's chapel, hewn out of the salt 

 rock. In the upper galleries, where the mining was 

 carried on irregularly, the roofs of the great caverns 

 excavated have often fallen in, and it has become 

 necessary to prop them up with wood ; but in the 

 lower galleries, where the operations have been 

 subsequently carried on, and conducted with more 

 regularity, large masses are left standing, which 

 serve as pillars to the roof. The workmen are 

 divided into three bands, which relieve each other 

 alternately, each spending eight hours in work, and 

 passing the rest of the time above ground with 

 their families, which do not, as has been asserted, 

 reside in the mines. The salt is cut out in long 

 narrow blocks, and then, after being broken into 

 smaller pieces, is packed up in barrels. There has 

 been much exaggeration in regard to these mines, 

 some travellers speaking of them as a subterraneous 

 city with extensive streets, buildings, &c. One of 

 the caverns, called the great hall, contains lustres 

 hanging from the roof, and all the curiosities, crys- 

 tals, petrifactions, &c., which have been found here. 

 Seven hundred thousand quintals are annually rais- 

 ed, which, with two hundred thousand quintals 

 raised at Bochnia, in the vicinity, yield a net 



amount of 180,000 annually. There are three 

 qualities of salt obtained here. The worst sort is 

 mixed with clay, and has a greenish appearance. 

 The best appears in the form of cubic crystals, and 

 is of a dark-grayish colour, with a mixture of yel- 

 low. The salt-works formerly belonged to Poland, 

 but have been the property of Austria, with a slight 

 intermission, since 1772. They are supposed to be 

 connected with the salt formation in Walachia, and 

 thus to have an extent of upwards of 500 miles. 

 See Fichtel's History of the Salt Mines in Tran- 

 sylvania in German, Nuremberg, 1780. 



WIER'S CAVE. See Cave. 



WIFE. See Husband and Wife. 



WIG is derived from the Latin pilus in this 

 way : pilus Spanish pelo, whence peluca ; French 

 perruque ; Dutch peruik ; English perwick, perwig, 

 periwig, shortened to wig. The use of false hair 

 is traced back to the ancients. Xenophon says 

 that Astyages wore a peruke about the fiftieth 

 Olympiad, in which the hair was thick. They 

 were afterwards worn by several of the Roman 

 emperors. Lampridius relates of the wig of Corn- 

 modus, that it was tinged with fragrant colours 

 and powdered with gold dust. After this period, 

 we find no trace of wigs in history till the sixteenth 

 century, when John, duke of Saxony, wrote to 

 Arnold von Falkenstein, in Coburg, to order a 

 handsome wig to be made in Nuremberg, " but pri- 

 vately, so that it may not be known to be for us, 

 and of a flaxen colour and curled make, of such 

 a fashion, moreover, that it may be conveniently 

 set upon the head." France afterwards became 

 the peculiar country of wigs, whence they spread 

 to all parts of Europe. Henry III., (157589), 

 having lost his hair by disease, caused by his de- 

 baucheries, covered his cap, such as was then in 

 general use, with false hair. Under Louis XIII., 

 (1610 43), they came into common use. Even 

 those who had no necessity for them, wore them 

 because it was fashionable. Their form was very 

 various. Some account of them may be found in a 

 learned work by Nicolai, On the Use of False Hair 

 (Ueber den Gebrauch der falchen Haare). Modern 

 refinement has abolished this unnatural ornament; 

 and, where wigs are needed, care is taken to make 

 them, as far as possible, resemble nature. Wigs, 

 with all their appurtenances, form a very curious 

 item in the history of fashion ; and the tenacity 

 with which men have clung, and even now cling, 

 to this article, which, like the cravat, is neither 

 comfortable, handsome, nor healthy, shows, in a 

 striking manner, the force of habit. We allude, of 

 course, only to those wigs which are worn merely 

 for fashion's sake, and not to those imitations of 

 the natural hair which serve as coverings for bald- 

 ness. A history of wigs, with illustrative plates, 

 would be not an uninteresting work. When peo- 

 ple began to appear without wigs, it was considered 

 the height of vulgarity. The same was the case 

 when people left off hair-powder and queues. The 

 French revolution gave the death-blow to the ge- 

 neral use of wigs. The disuse of them in the case 

 of particular classes was considered a flagrant 

 breach of decorum. A clergyman in Prussia, 

 named Shultze, was involved in serious difficulties, 

 because he appeared with a queue and without a 

 wig in the pulpit, and the government was obliged 

 to protect him. Of Jovellanos it is mentioned 

 that he was the first Spanish judge who appeared 

 without a wig; and the influence of the prime 

 minister, count Aranda, was required to support 



