Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-11-26
IN A SALT MINE.


lars Of Crystal.
Going down into salt mine is taking
o glimpse at wonderful things, accord
ing to correspondent, who writes:
..Light few candles was the order
passed as we were leaving Winsford;
and / am under the impression that the
hole down below is like any other hole,
and that the STEW candles will just
give US light enough for the space OF
some three or four yards. But we shall
see- We step into our iron bucket
The door thereof is closed upon rs. Tho
steel ropes are made fast. The signal is
given. There is hesitating. trembling
motion, and we dive swiftly into pluto
MAN night, straight, sheer through q
tunnel three hundred and thirty feet
deep, and three feet six inches across,
the rim of our bucket now and again
grinding. scraping, humping, screech-
ing against the narrow walls. After
the first few seconds have passed, one
can not tell, from ones sensations mere
", whether one is going up or down, or
is suspended at rest. There is only the
trembling of the invisible steel ropes
and the scraping sound on the walls.
In minute more we touch the floor
of the under world with the
lightness of feather. In the name of
all the fairies and COLLINS, and gnomes
and spirits of the earth, what have we
there! Oh! Master Robert, ..a few can-
dies The City of Dis Illuminated
this is what meets my astonished gaze.
Open spaces, endless streets, turning and
winding off in all directions, and out
lined in spots of light, and in the farth-
est distance an ornamental group of
lights, as if on wall or on some vast
supporting pillar. 1t is as if one looks
from some point of vantage upon the
the lights of town in dark night,
without moon or stars, not q town with
empty space over it, but town under .
horizontal ceiling thirty-three feet above
the pavement. On this level pavement
the massed bands of the British army
may play Strauss music, and the whole
of the London West End spin round on
the eight fantastic toe" The first feeling
of surprise over, / examine my SUR
roundings in leisurely detail. At some
distance in front of us looms a dark
mass with horizontal line of lights
half way up it. The three of us-Mr.
Verdin, the guide and myself
IL, cdCn CstiI yliSso a h5uoSt SoiieiiO uOl ooo
the floor, which appears to be as level as
the floor of drawing-room, and which
is covered with thin carpet of salt fine as
powder and dry as finder. Wherever
the light falls upon it, the dark object
glitters as if it were incrusted with
rubies and diamonds. 1t turned out to
be huge square pillar, extending from
floor to ceiling. Each of its four sides
measures twelve yards; it is thirty-three
feet high, and it is nothing but a mass
of crystals. At every twenty-five yards.
north, south, east, west, stands one OF
these gigantic columns-all of them,
like this one, masses of many-tinted salt
CRYSTALS, and with the diamond flash
darting over their Sides The plan OF
this wonderful colonnade is now obvi-
Gus. The miners have been cutting
their way, all these many generations,
| through the solid rock salt, horizontally,
clearing smooth floor below their
feet, leaving smooth ceiling over their
heads, and, at the already named dis
lance, those enormous pilasters, whose
function is to prevent the roof-that is,
the three hundred and thirty feet of the
earth's crust-from falling in. The
ceiling is too high to respond very iber.
| ally to the flicker of our candle lights
but in hundred spots it wrinkles like
stars peering through the clouds of night.
They look as though they had the
strength of doom, those pillars, and
were destined to last to the crack there
of.-London Ne,cs.