130 COMMON SALT. 
republic, consisting of many families, who have their 
own peculiar laws and polity. Here are likewise public 
roads, and carriages, horses being employed to draw 
the salt to the mouths of the mine, where it is taken up 
by engines. The horses, when once they are down, 
never more see the light of day; and many of the peo- 
ple seem buried alive in this immense abyss. Some are 
born there, and never stir out; others, however, have 
occasional opportunities of breathing the fresh air in 
the fields, and enjoying the light of the sun. The sub- 
terraneous passages or galleries are very spacious ; and, 
in many of them, chapels are hewn out of the salt. In 
these are set up crucifixes, and the images of saints, be- 
fore which lights are kept continually burning. In some 
parts of the mine huge columns of salt are left standing 
to support the rock. Its windings are so numerous and 
intricate, that workmen have frequently lost their way : 
the lights they carried have been burned out, and they 
have perished before they could be found. The salt is 
taken from these mines in blocks so large as, sometimes, 
to measure nine feet in length, four feet in width, and 
two or three feet in thickness. In the year 1780, the 
greatest depth to which the workmen had penetrated 
was about 320 yards, and the mass of salt was consi- 
dered to be in some places more than 240 yards thick, 
and to extend at least three leagues. 
Near the town of Cardona, about fifty miles north- 
west of Barcelona, in Spain, there is a mountain of salt, 
without cleft or crevice, 500 feet high/ and nearly 
three miles in circumference. In the province of La- 
hore, in Hindostan, travellers have described a moun- 
tain of the same mineral, not inferior to this in magni- 
tude ; and the elevated regions of Peru afford rock salt 
at the height of 7000 feet above the level of the sea. 
At Northwich and Nantwich, in the county of Ches- 
ter, there are salt mines of great depth and extent. 
These are frequently visited by travellers, and are found 
amply to repay the trouble and inconvenience of de- 
scending into them. There are two principal beds of 
