Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-07-23
A DAY UNDER THE EARTH.
David Ker in New York Times.

Among all the mines of Continental Eu-
ropt the two most famous as mere 'sights"
are ,hs iron mine cf Oannemora, in Eastern
Sweden, and the salt mine, which we have
Just visited, at Wieliczka, in Austrian Po- /
land, few miles from the Russian frontier. |
or the two the former has unquestionably |
the advantage as regards ones first i'm |
pressions OF it. Wieiczka, like Niagara,
grows upon you by degrees. Dannemora,
like the Himalaya, strikes you with amaze
ment at the very Hrst glance. Strolling
through quiet little Swedish village
| you como upon number of low wooden
sheds In the middle of 1t, into one of which
you are led by the obliging foreman Of the
| works. In the centre of the shed is kind
of rough pulpit of deal planks with three or
| four steps leading up to It. Your conductor
signs to you to mount the steps, and smiles
| knowingly on seeing you start back the mo-
ment You have done 30. And we'll you may.
over the edge of the pulpit you seem to be
looking down into the very innermost depths
OF the earth, or rather of some other planet
hitherto unvisited and unknown. Miles
below you, as it seems to your bewildered
eyes, swarm OF tiny figures shaped like
men, but looking smaller than ants at that
, tremendous depth, are piling up great heaps
of stones, trundling wheelbarrows along
narrow tunnel-like passages cut in the heart
: of the eternal rock, or welding pick md
hammer with all their might and main. But
the barrows pass and repass as silently as
shadows the hammers and pickaxes, how
, ever vigorously piled, strike without the
3 slightest sound, and even the great masses o.
, | stone and ponderous Jumps Of ore make nj
noise as they fall. Amid all these signs o
s active life and busy labor this dead, utter 81
. | lence has an indescribably weird and ghastly
| effect Suddenly the pigmies below are seer
tn
tons, sheltering themselves in the CANNES o
4 the rock till not one man Is to be seen, ever
y as Isaiah beheld in his vision the worship
IS ! pers of false goods fleeing for refuge to tn
- Lord arose to shake terribly the earth"
10 "They are going TO blast the rock" whis
le pers the foreman, "and now you'll see some
IN | thing worth looking at"
Scarcely are the words uttered whe
Il through the loneliness of the dismal cavern
ir below goes a burst Of sound beyond the pow
,o er of words to describe. The first shock {
~ it is like the loudest thunderclap minglc
with the deepest notes of a mighty gong
and then the echoes go rolling and rumblin
a through all the dim, unending corridors
ir this world OF night till IL seems rs If the soil
earth itself were being rent asunder. Thei
in the midst of the dead hush that follow
no this terrific uproar, you hear the 'splash
n of the falling stones far away beneath yo'
y, seven times repeated, but growing ev'
ie- fainter and fainter till all is still once NOR
N But on a sudden the silence is broken aires
las by the rattle Of chain, and dark object o
O,- scures the mouth OF the shaft, while the for
ri man says with a laugh, "Here comes OF
-, | conveyance, and IL you're ready we ms
vi lust as well start" The con veyance in que
ed ton is huge iron-bound bucket as high
lp. a mans shoulder, in which we stow ou
ed, selves as best we may. One OF the mine
as. | perches himself above our heads with
Of foot on either edge of the bucket al
y both hands grasping the chain, and Z
~ descent begins. A strange descent 1t
ing Around the brink of that sunless abyss hoN
lin numbers of tiny birds, whose bright yellt
,rs' | pumage stands out like ray of sunlig
against the blackness of the eternal glo0
But they cannot follow whittier we are goir
If AS we sink deeper and deeper into the &C
uld bw one viii shriii cries of warning. and
3 ~ length we are utterly alone An overwhel
ing loneliness IL is one which enables us
realize for the first time the full meaning
1 rs | that tremendous sentence, "Iike those II
lter | go down alive into the pit" With oil
the | men so close beside us as to DO actua
led touchinglus we seem as completely apart fr
| humanity az ii clingng to drifting pla
art in the midst of a sailless ocean.
by We are now midway. Suspended
ties tween the woild above and the world
ical 4 low, we seem to have no fellowship "
usi- either. Silence and utter night cut US
from the living earth. In the DESERT
sea- the untrodden forest, there are
murmurs, echoes, the ghosts Of Soands I
ms hay9 been HSi1 .ae Stiffness is as cGlnpl
Tvs | as III tne WOfiu ttlu al tIldt upoi
rhe had suddenly been sn,itIeE into nothingnt
t Of and only we ourselves kept living, lIyi
,ere on. 1t is literally "a deafening silenc
,or, all the more terrific because accc
', io panied by the most vivid ocular s.
ltea gestion of furious uproar. Through
tten | vast blocks of eternal ice below
be- | rocks and clefts either side take we
real and goblin forms. Clawed hands seem
II is clutch at us, hideous faces to grin and {
- | Der, monstrous snakes TO wrthe, sKele
'ha' ~ hounds to gnash and tear. 1t is a hell
'eeu dumb show. Beneath us juts out mig
the | buttress of dark rock like the fragment
Tale some ruined planet, such a. Martins q
au- fancy would have peopled with terror-stri
hle en- multiudes fleeing before the thunder
lie the last Judgment We approach it-graz
ms leave it behind. And now, as we near
slde goal the sounds Of lite begin to strike
.lity ears again. We hear the voices OF men,
rumble of wheels, the clink of pick and b;
mer, and suddenly there comes a hei
- of | thump as our bucket alights upon heal
~ | rubbish and the dreary journey is over.