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i. JI= WORLD'S STRANGEST 01T A Thousand Years of Toil Hai Honeycombed Out of Seoid Salt an Entire City. William G. Fitzgerald, in the Scient fie American. If there is any more surprising mot ument of human labor than Wielicka\ underground city, when in the courk of ages the earth, one would like t know what it is an(] where it may b found. An out-of-the-world place thi in the quiet Carpathian Valley of ti Vistula, some miles off the Cracov Lemberg railroad in Austrian Polan For ever since railroads came ini the world these peasants refused I permit them near, fearing lest tl vibration should cause the upper ear( to fall in upon those strange, crysts sparkling streets a thousand fei in the earth, with their little hort railroads, drawn by congenitally blin animals, who may be said never i have been ''in the world'' at all, I we know it. The origin of the rock'so mines of Bonchina and Wielicka lost in the mists of antiquity. The are certainly known as early as ti reign of Bela IV of Hungary, in 125 During the Tartar invasions they wei somewhat neglected, but they wei restored to fresh activity by immnigrai Hungarians from across the border i the time of St. Klinga. One thousand years of patient hi man toil have honey.-conibed out of ti solid salt crust of the earth an entii city at various levels. It consists < an intricate coigeries of windir sbreets and dim. svintillating alleys;< pillared church: diaim-nd and ruL staircases. re.iauiants. railroad sti tions, shrines. siauies monuments av a thousand other wonders-all roup when in the hard. sparkling rock sa crystals. which. li by electric light pine torches. magnesium flashes < thousands of candles. fairly blaze world of precious stones. The Salt City is not only difficl of access. but the Austroi-Hungai Govern men t (it is State propert, most jeal.i.ly guards it ; and - W'ilrkmen ar sear1ced several tiies day . let thv sx-shmil lie ivinpled 1 c na a.l i I I-z (d r, ck salt ni their l 'iis. Ii is not 41111' w 11)er1t salt shouhi11l lie cisideredi precimis, hi the hice ren-inlls 0that0 woIrkers are searehed as jealou)1sly the K1ffiirs ill the liamon141id Illines K(imbherloy. The eit rance is a hm , low, rdi nry--lookin- huibling, cmntaining I administ .at iII ollicers of t lie minl and also a small museum of paleoul logicAl euriosiliCs, fuind dCeP dowI remote recesses. Elevators -desce the abysses leading to this wondro cit,y, though many visitors prefer ge down by the long, massive stairea hewn in the solid salt, which flasi emerald and ruby rays at every stel One naturally asks why an enti ''city'' was hewn in the salt, more < pecially the pillared cathedrals, alt.ars, statues, iand the like. And o1 learns, naturally enough, that this patient work chiseled out duri centuries, is ini the naturec of' voti offering from grateful muen, whom Il salt has yielded what will seem to a mere ab,ject pittance, ranging fro five cents to t wenty-five cents a da: TJihe salthiewn eathedoral of St. A thoniy dates from the seventteeth ce tur y, and wais projected by a pin for email. (Galicia n miners ar.e deep ieligious people. They have their ov minister of religion ini the dlepths, ai touching prayer. serv'ices with weil music are held in their rock sa ohurches. Also they have their ou band for festive Iccailonis. The high altar inth at''(tl dral '' is cunningly aond w tw~isted pillarns, and i stlnc Ssalt,hewii stat ues ofi St. St anisla S and St. Clemenmt. (Oni the1 altarm stel are carveda in rubly-redl rock salt ( figuies of' two kneeling monlks, and the background of thle altar is a hIl salt erucifix, before which stiands i Virgin placing the infant Jlesus St. Anthony 's arms. This, tile me extr'aordinlary church in all the worl contains a salt-hlewn pulpit, suppo e, d by salt statues of St. Peter and I Paul, and in a niche below stands glistening statue of the good Kit .Augustus II. ~. Emnulat ion must have been thle cret of all this gigantic work. It seei that no soonecr was the first shrni chiseled in salt, the first statue eat od, than sueeding generations miners, fired with zeal, resolved see what they also could do in ti Sstrage sculpture, Some three hl a red feet away from the cathedral a most wonderful rock-hewn salt ca eorn in this wierdest of cities. Thlis ithe vast ''Salle de D)anse,'' the wo erful Lentowv ball r'ooml, lit with e rmnous lusters or chlandeliers of wvir hung rock crystals of opalescent huci , heoe last were added in 11onor1 of ylsit froin the Russian Czar, Alexa ter I, w)Io (like many other royal ar 4iapeal~ dtenaries) visited the Cil Y of Salt with the palatine of Hungary. This great ball rcom is over three a hundred feet in length and towers t dimly to a height of 190 feet. Its d walls of salt rock glisten and flash v with exquisitely-hued crys;als, and r there are symbolical statues here and I there, representing "Knowledge," i '"Labor," "Vulcan" and "Neptune" as well as a special throne of state at s one end, of course, hewn in the rock 8 e salt and kept for the use of the aged i 0 Emporor Franz Joseph or the imper e ial archdukes. 3 e There is a triumphal archway in salt over the entrance to the great ball room, surmounted by a miner 0 saluting, and at his feet is carved in salt crystals the Polish greeting i "Szcze se Boze il''-the equivalent of I h the German "Gluckauf." When ever 1 an old working is exhausted and clos ed, or a new "street" opened in the I ;e subterranean city, the event is cele- . brated by a great ball in the Lentow j saloon. Then it is that hundreds of I Galician peasant women, wives and I It friends of the workers below, quaintly is clad as a comic opera chorus, take i their partners in the vast, rough-hewn salt cavern while shrill pipes, quaint sounding flutes and sweet violins i make merry music as the couples ( e whirl in wild Slavonic dance. Another t vast eham1bor, abowt 350 feet from the A surface, is the Michaelowice Hall on I the second tier of the city. Rock salt ,yas dug out of this for forty-four i years. It is about, hundred feet long, i e 65 feet wide and 117 feet high. The fsides and roof are secured by hun derds of tree t rnks, placed one above I the other as pillars and strutted to- i rether. This reminds one of the ter- 1 rible accidents that have happened s in the city of salt. More than once I fires have broken out in the work- I t ings and have' burned for years, un tI the wooden props have given out. . Or again, the strange, sullen--looking a saline lakes, navigated by boats in I these dark depths may rise suddenly, it probably fed by suhterrancail springs, m and drown scores l.t these patienl I har1d-wor-king men. < Worst ot all. -reat, masses of the I a rock sall, 1ften weig und reds of tons, ma1y 'Ifall inl aralanteli's I'oiim ti lI dl "ed 1.((11's 401 1hie. str ets or the ceil Um. o w 'ebaIm's. (hie Iotices hat the imieise saloons. restaurants, (huirclies and other publie buildings hWl inl SAilt, are lighted by great chandeliers of' salt crystals. There is le i e the MIichllowice 01hamber, 1t) fevt niimeter. 20 feet high and I,c,,jon(aitining about 2410 eandles. The Kaiser Franz chamber, iamed after file present ruler of the dual in moarhely, contiuins two immense pyr: ,d amuids wit.h ornamental bases, corn us menmorpting a visit of the Emperor to and limnpress many years ago. This se hall is nearly 200 feet long and about 105 feet high. Leaving this chamber, one crosses a wooden bridge over a Ve subterranean river filled with blind s- fish, and in tie dim light of torehes hie one beholds another pumblic monument a-an obelisk 30 feet high, carved in di rock sakt, and recording a visit of the late Crown Prince Rudolph and Prin ve css Stephenie in 1887. e One umay mention in~ passing the as Drozdowice and Archduke Frederick m chambers, on thme wvay to the Central v! lliailroad station, which is named after a- Court Goluchowskl. Here meet all the 1little trolly lines of the underground city, and it was made a kind of een t ral " Broad way'' thlree centuries ago. liere coniverge many of the prinei dc pal street or galleries of the East .d Field. Thle lines are narrow gague, 11. and thme little cars ar.e drawn by Polish *ponies, most of whom have never been on earth at. all, and are born blind. Th'llm platform of this "G'rand Con-, lt1ral depot'' has seating accomoda t ins tor 400 porsonls, andl on holidays in enfes~ andl rest aurants are crIow~dled ws~ithi visitors5 fronm the upper wvorld, who eat and drink and enjoy the wild hmusic of the miners' orchestra, which echoes and reverberates strangely mthough the dim yet sparkling streets. in Nor mnst we forget to mention the st salt lakes of the city, in many places a20 or 30 feet deep, and navigated by t~ ferry boats containing twventy-five t. persons. These lakes give access to a rcmote and very ancients parts of the city, such, for example, as the *Stephanie diaevah saints rise strange i.. ly out of the dense salt water, grit ns and enshrined, as it were, by most tie beautiful salt stalactites and stalag ..mites. But wvhile admiring these won of ders, this patient work of ages, let~ us to not lose sight of the hard life which li the poor mining inhabitants of the .Salt City are compelled to live. There is are some two thousand men at work v- day and night down here, in eight ohour shifts, and as a rule the men get n- little mor.e than twventy cents a clay. Like the monks of the great St. Bler nard. their allotted span of life is sshort. The men have a peculiar livid alook. They are hollow-cheeked and bloodless-a conmd ition1 probtably due dto thme action of the salt on the system after years of insidious contaot. Besides floods, falls of salt imlasses nd fires-all of which catastrophes ike on additional horrot down in the epths-another serious danger is the iolent explosions of carbureted hyd ogen, which may accumulate in new y-excavated gallerie.4. All holidays, olitical and religious, are celebrated it the City of Salt with a careless lan that blots out all thought of orrow. There ai-e imposing services n the unique cathedral, dances, pie ies, boating parties, and even mar iages. down in this strange under vorld, hollowed out of the rook salt. Children are born here, too, and bristened. When these grow up, of ,ourse, they take naturally to the vork of their fathers, and help to iew out the hundreds of thousands of ons of rock salt which is a govern men.ta) imonopoly. The ;men seem )erfectly happy, and to see them on a ,estive day, when the streets are half Lm inch deep in ruby and diamond lashing salt pebbles and dust; when he Emperor may be on his throne n the great Lentow saloon, and 250 3ave musicians directing a perfect irgie of delight-then indeed one vould say the citizens of the salt do nain need no sympahty from outsid 'r.s. k Parrot Story from Nation's Capital qew York World. vhen the President aid his family veit to Oyster Bay, at pet parrot of vhich Mr. Roosevelt is fond was turn A over to a dealer to be cared for. lie parrot was int rodleed into the oosevelt household sone years ago, .1 becamv n4icli atlached to t.he rI-esident 's eldest dlaughte. iis voice houting, ''Alice! Alice! Alice!'' was requeintly heard ringing through the all ways. Witli the Imarriage of Miss Roose e0t. to Representative Longworth the larrot seemed to lose interest in life. Is jubilant voice chaniged to a dull roak, and tile familiar cry of 'Alice!'' changed to a colorless echo. I. no lionger flapped its wings, nor lid its shirill eries ring IH0rough the Then ealne tie departure or Mrs. nwwth Ifor I'Iur-poe. The parrot's WoudI 10111inma1-,e v ell. For daYs it sat ip n1 its pecl as 11h4oigI inl a siupor. 'ow it is slirolnld'led by birds of ev 11ry1 desvription amid elime: bit it does m1(i ntice them. it sits with its head ilucked u1ndevr its wiligs, anld no itnomnt of per-suiasion can induce it to talk. New York World. The following is a copy of a letter ,ent to Secretary Talft by President Roosevelt regarding the slaughter of Boros at Mount Dajo, written ae Nording to the new spelling: The Whit Hous, Washington, August 14,1906. My. Der Mr. Secretary-I hav re sevd yer letter of March, 13, with ikompanying kab of Gen. Wood an sering yer inquiry as to the a.lejdl wan Ion slawtler of Moros. Thlis anser is, of kors, entirely sat isfactory. The ofisers and enlistd men mAer Gen. Woo3(d 's konmand hav' per rormied a miost galant and soldierly Feet in a wa konfers aded kredt on the Amerikan Army. Tha r entild to the hartiest adnmira thun andl pras of thos of ther felo itizens who r glad to e the honor of lie flag upheld by the kouraj af theo nen waring the Amerikan uniform. Th'leodor Ruzvelt. Natural Question. 'xchange. A little Philadelphia boy was taken >y his father for his first visit to tihe soo. Stopping before an inclosure, lie isked, ''Papa, what animal is that 7'' tendling the sign tacked upl to one side iis fat her resopnded. ''That, my son, s ai prong horned antelope. ' '''Kin he dow his hiorn 7'' was tile quest ion that )Iomplt ly followed. 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