Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-01-16
misfellaneGms.
Down In . Salt Mine.
4 GLIrTERING UNDERGROUND CIT1
WITH IT'S PILLARS OF CRYSTAL.

..Lipbt a 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 ..few candles" will just give US
light enough for the space of three or four
wards. But we shall see. We step into
our iron bucket. The door thereof is
closed upon US. The steel ropes are made
fast. The signal is given. There is
hesitating. trembling motion. and we dive
swiftly into plutonian night, straight;
sheer through a tunnel $50 feet deep, and
three feet and inches across, the rim OF
our bucket now and again grinding. scrap
ing, humping. screeching against the mar
row walls. After the first few seconds
have passed. one cannot tell, from ones
sensations merely, whether one is going
up or down, or is suspended AT rest.
There is only the trembling OF the lnvisi-
BILE steel ropes and the scrapng sound on
the walls.
In a minute more we touch the floor OF
the under world with the lightness OF a
| 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 candies The city of
Dis illuminated-this is what meets my
astonshed gaze, Open spaces, endless
streets turning and winding off in all d.
rections, and outlined in spots of light,
and in the farthest distance an ornamental
group of lights, as if on wall or some
vast supporting pillar. 1t is as if someone
looks from some point of vantage upon
the lights of a town in dark night. with
out moon or stars; not town with emp.
ty space over it. but town under hori-
zonta 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 eight
fantastic toe"
The first feeling of surprise over ex-
anime nv surroundings in leisurely detail
At some distance in front of us loom a
dark mass with a horizontal line OF lights
half way up it. The three of us-Mr.
Verdin, the guide, and myself-approach
it. each carrying a lighted candle across
the floor, which appears to be as level as
the floor of drawing room, and which
is covered with a thin carpet OF salt fine
as powder and dry as finder.
Wherever the lights fall upon it, the
dark object glitters as it it were encrusted
with rubies and diamonds. 1t turns out
to be huge square pillar, extending from
floor to ceiling. Each OF its four sides
measures y yards, it is 33 feet high. and
it is nothing but a mass OF crystals. At
every 25 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 darling over their sides.
The plan of this wonderful colOnnade is
now obvious. The miners have been cut
ting their way.all these many generations.
through the solid rock salt, horizontally,
clearing a smooth floor below their feet,
leaving smooth ceiling over their heads.
and, at the already named distance, those
enormous pilasters, whose function is to
prevent the roof-that is, the $50 feet of
the earth's crust, from falling in. The
ceiling is too high to respond very hber-
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 thereof.-C0r. London
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