The popular book: "Salt: a World History", by Mark Kurlansky, publ.by Walker in hard-back, 2002, Penguin (USA) in paperback, 2003 (ISBN 0-14-200161-9) has an illustration on p. 168 of miners "descending a shaft in the Durnberg salt mine on a slide. The (old) drawing is credited to "Salinen Austria, Durnberg". Apparently tourists have been riding these slides for fun for 3-400 years(statement on p.169).
Unfortunately Kurlansky cites only secondary sources in his rather extensive bibliography, and there are no citations within the text. Another of my wife's esoteric book purchases!
Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 22:57:28 +0100
From: d-j-mccurdy <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: saltwerk, Berchtsgarden
Referring to the use of wooden slides in salt mines. I have visited
several
salt mines in Austria and the use of wooden slides to connect levels
was
found in all of them.
Damian McCurdy
John Berry Associates
Geology & Remote Sensing
5000 Beverly Hills Drive
AUSTIN, TX 78731, U.S.A.
+1-512-452-8068 (Voice)
+1-512-413-9270 (cell)
[log in to unmask]
|