The central railway station in the third storey, and the great restaurant, with its ponderous pillars and its long vista of latticed galleries, are among the many marvels of the mines, but nothing it contains is so wonderful as the subterranean lake, lying 700 ft. below the surface of the earth. The waters of the lake are dark, thick, and heavy, and as the boat glides over its surface the slumberous wavelets roll up against the sides of the grotto with a ghost-like swish. A ponderous solitude over weighs all. The Styx alone of all the legendary rivers of death could rival this in stillness. The boat is guided through the Stephanie and Rudolf grottoes by ropes running on pulleys along the sides of the curious craft, and the boatman, with his hands resting on the stern, pushes it with his feet braced against the rope. Of the sixteen lakes in different parts of the mine, this is the only one upon which visitors are allowed to go. The report of a gun fired in the centre of the lake fills the vault with long and lingering echoes, and the voice of the boatman sounds like a giant’s voice uprising from the depths of chaos. The illumination of the mine is arranged according to a regular tariff based on the number of visitors sharing the expense. For any number of persons up to twenty, the illumination, which comprehends the employment of over a thousand candles and electric lamps, costs about ninety shillings, but for an additional sovereign, which is charged when a party numbers over thirty persons, the whole mine becomes a blaze of light. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF SALT MINE AT SLANICU, RUMANIA This famous mine has been worked since the time of the Romans.] Serious calamities at Wieliczka are now practically unknown, owing to the care exercised by the officials, but minor accidents are unavoidable. Some few years ago a huge mass of rock-salt, weighing some 200 tons, fell from the roof of one of the chambers; in 1868 the mines were flooded by the bursting of a subterranean salt lake; and a fire in 1815 resulted in the loss of several hundred lives. The early history of the mines contains the record of several terrible disasters, including an incendiary fire in 1510, which caused a great number of deaths, and another fire in 1644, which raged for over a year, and consumed all the people, horses, and mules who were in the mine when the fire occurred.