Thus, cavern’d round, in Cracow’s mighty mines, With crystal walls a gorgeous city shines; Scoop’d in the briny rock long streets extend Their hoary course, and glittering domes ascend: Down their bright steeps, emerging into day, Impetuous fountains burst their headlong way, O’er milk-white vales in ivory channels spread, And wondering seek their subterraneous bed. Form’d in pellucid salt, with chisel nice, The pale lamp glittering through the sculptur’d ice, With wild reverted eyes fair Lotta stands, And spreads to heaven, in vain, her glassy hands; Cold dews condense upon her pearly breast, And the big tear rolls lucid down her vest. Far gleaming o’er the town, transparent fanes Rear their white towers, and wave their golden vanes: Long lines of lusters pour their trembling rays, And the bright vault resounds with mingled blaze.—DARWIN. These celebrated excavations are about five miles distant from the city of Cracow, in a small town named Wielicza, which is entirely undermined, the cavities reaching to a considerable extent beyond its limits. The length of the great mine, a view of which is seen on the next page, from east to west, is six thousand feet; its breadth, from north to south, two thousand; and its greatest depth eight hundred; but the veins of salt are not limited to this extent, the depth and length of them, from east to west, being yet unknown, and their breadth only, hitherto determined. There are at present ten shafts; and not a single spring has been discovered throughout the extent of the mine.