2-888-361 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Regent-Street - Marston Salt-Pit, [Cheshire], 1850. 'The gigantic columns of rock salt - with floor and roof of the same mineral - all glittered in the sudden light; and the shadows of the guests, preternaturally lengthened, fell behind them to the distance of twenty or thirty yards, and seemed to climb up the massive columns of salt, upon stilts which might have been used in Brobdignag...I could not help wishing that it had been possible to illuminate the cavern with gas, so that I might have been a witness of the scene. The miners did not happen to be at work on this particular day; but a few were procured from the neighbourhood, and came down by the bucket to show us the first process of the manufacture...Working in a salt mine is...infinitely preferable to working in a coal pit. There is no fear of explosion in a salt mine; the ventilation is good; the miner also can walk erect...'. . From "Illustrated London News", 1850.