Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/36

30 liable to be melted away during any accidental flooding of the mine, and allow the entire upper strata to tumble in. This has actually happened on one occasion, when a part of the mine was flooded and serious damage resulted.

"Our guide said the length of the passages, galleries, and halls was nearly four hundred English miles, and the greatest depth reached was two thousand four hundred feet. If we should visit all the galleries and passages, and examine every object of interest in the mines, we should be detained there at least three weeks. Not a single one of all the workmen had been in every part of all the galleries of the mine, and he doubted if there was any officer attached to the concern who would not be liable to be lost if left to himself.

"Nobody knows when these mines were discovered; they were worked in the eleventh century, when they belonged to the kingdom of Poland, and an important revenue was derived from them. In the fourteenth century Casimir the Great established elaborate regulations for working the mines, and his regulations are the basis of those which are still in force, in spite of numerous changes. In 1656 they were pledged to Austria, but were redeemed by John Sobieski in 1683. When the first partition of Poland took place, in 1772, they were handed over to Austria, which has had possession of them ever since, with the exception of the short period from 1809 to 1815.

"While the mines belonged to Poland the kings of that country obtained a large revenue from them. For two or three centuries this revenue was sufficiently large to serve for the endowment of convents and the dowries of the members of the royal family. The Austrian Government has obtained a considerable revenue from these mines, but owing to the modern competition with salt from other sources, it does not equal the profit of the Polish kings.

"Except when reduced by accidents or other causes, the annual production of salt in these mines is about two hundred millions of pounds, or one hundred thousand tons. The deposit is known to extend a long distance, and the Government might, if it wished, increase the production to any desired amount. But it does not consider it judicious to do so, and is content to keep the figures about where they have been since the beginning of the century. The salt supplies a considerable area of country; a large amount, usually of the lower grades, is sent into Russia, and the finer qualities are shipped to various parts of the Austrian Empire.

"We asked if the workmen lived in the mines, as was currently reported, and were told they did not. 'They would not be allowed to do