Groups and gangs of miners, naked to the hips, are everywhere busy with pick, mallet, and wedge, with which they block out and separate the salt slabs from the solid mass. The process has the simplicity of the age in which it was first employed. The blocks are marked out on the surface of the rock by grooves. One side is then deepened to the required thickness, and the face is split off by wedges inserted under the block. It is then divided into pieces of 100 lb. each and removed to the shafts, where it is hoisted, stage after stage, to the surface. The number of labourers continually engaged is from one to two thousand. The miners, who are muscular, healthy-looking men, are divided into gangs. The work is carried on in shifts of six hours each, and in each shift a gang will quarry out about 1,000 lb. weight of salt. The Letow ball-room, which lies at a depth of 216 ft. below the surface, dates from 1750, and has been the scene of many Royal visits and splendid entertainments. One end of the spacious chamber is adorned with a colossal Austrian eagle, and in an alcove at the opposite end is set up a crystal throne. The giant chamber which bears the name of Michalowice, a fearsome and stupendous excavation, was completed in 1701, as the result of forty years of continuous labour. It is 59 ft. long by 92 ft. broad, and the roof, supported by a wooden framework, has a height of 118 ft. The chamber is lit by a salt chandelier furnished with 300 electric bulbs. The Francis Joseph ball-room is another of the wonders of this subterranean city. It is an immensely large and immensely lofty apartment, lit by six large chandeliers fashioned of crystalline rock-salt. Salt statues of Vulcan and Neptune, which adorn the hall, reflect the electric light from myriad brilliant points and angles, and contribute to the general impression of flashing splendour which the scene conveys. Beneath these great reception rooms, are smaller halls, each beautiful in itself, bearing the names of royal or princely personages. Massive pyramids of salt and sculptured monuments, with carved inscriptions, perpetuate the memories of Emperors and Empresses of Austria, or commemorate their visits to the mines. Near to the Letow ball-room is the celebrated St. Anthony’s Chapel, which was hewn in 1698, and for upwards of two centuries has been the resort of thousands of the devout. The vestibule in the chapel consists of a symmetrical archway with figures at the sides. The interior is beautified by an altar bearing a sculptured representation of the Crucifixion, and flanked by salt effigies of kneeling monks. Hard by St. Anthony’s Chapel a magnificent shrine is hewn in one of the passages, peopled with figured saints, which leads to the Queen’s Chapel, with the superbly-chiselled altar and its view of Bethlehem carved in the solid salt.