The subject of the formation of rock-salt deposits will be treated in a later chapter, in which a description will be given of rock-salt mining in Cheshire. The primitive methods that characterized the brine industry have been adhered to with equal tenacity in the winning of rock-salt. It is extraordinary that, in the manufacture and in the mining of salt, each successive generation of salt-men, in inheriting their methods from their forefathers, or adapting them from the miners of another country, have always preserved the intense conservatism that appears to be inseparable from the industry, and have resisted all innovations that have promised to simplify or expedite their labours. [Illustration: ANCIENT SALT WORKS _A._ Sheds. _B._ Painted Signs. _C._ First Room. _D._ Second Room. _E._ Third Room. _F._ Windows. _G._ Window in Roof. _H_ and _I._ Wells. _K._ Casks. _L._ Pole. _M._ Forked Resting Sticks _From an Old Print_ _Published in 1556_· ] It would be an interminable and unprofitable undertaking to conduct the reader upon a tour of the salt mines of the world, and explain the different methods that are adopted to conform with the local and geological conditions which obtain in the various salt regions. The systems followed in most countries are governed by traditions that have their origin in immemorial times, and the disposition to perpetuate the operations without change through succeeding ages is, perhaps, traceable to the races that work the mines rather than to the deposits in which they work. The process of solar evaporation which is employed to-day on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic is practically the same as it was when the civilization of China was in its infancy; the implements and methods in present use in the salt mines of Austria, Russia, and Rumania were introduced by the discoverers of the lodes in the darkest ages. We cannot even fix the comparatively recent period in which it was decreed that the Rumanian mines of Tirgu-Ocna and Ocnele-Mari should be exploited by convict labour, while the Slavic mine was to find employment for free workers only. Every country, every salt district, and almost every mine has its peculiar and distinguishing rules, customs, and methods of work, which are interesting in themselves but of insufficient importance to warrant detailed consideration in a treatise of this scope. There are, however, certain salt regions and mines which, by reason of their magnitude and the possession of unprecedented features, have obtained rank among the lesser wonders of the world, and for this reason we must devote a little space to “the Great Salt” of Wieliezka, in Hungary, and to the great Rumanian salt deposits.