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I have been in the Hartz, under Rammelsberg; glided, as on Russian mountains, at Hallein, through the mountain, from the top down to the salt-works; wandered about in the catacombs of Rome and Malta: and what does one see in the deep passages? Gloom darkness! What does one feel? Cold, and a sense of oppression a longing for air and light, which is by far the best; and that we have now."
These dykes are then flushed with water, which is allowed to remain in them undisturbed for the space of from five to twelve months, according to the richness of the soil; and, being then thoroughly saturated with the salt that it has taken up, the brine is drawn off through wooden pipes from Hallein over hill and dale into the evaporating pans.
More I need not say about the journey than that, on the fifth day after leaving Ebensee, having rested a little in the very beautiful city of Salzburg, we marched into the town of Hallein, at the foot of the Dürrnberg, the famous salt mountain, called Tumal by old chroniclers, and known for a salt mountain seven hundred and thirty years ago.
The Austrian part of the range is now included in what is called the district of Salzburg, and that district abounds, as might be expected, in salt springs, hot and cold, which form in fact the baths of Gastein, Ischl, and some other places. Hallein is a small town eight miles to the south-east of Salzburg, and it was to the mine of Hallein, as before said, that I paid my visit.
We had crossed the frontier of Bavaria near Hallein, and, having loitered so long among the delightful scenery of its neighbourhood, we now hurried on towards Munich, through Reichenhall, Fraunstein, Weisham, Rosenheim, Aibling, and Peiss.
The whole salt district of Upper Austria, called the Salzkammergut, forms part of a range of rocks that extends from Halle in the Tyrol, passes through Reichenthal in Bavaria, and continues by way of Hallein in Salzburg, to end at Ausse in Styria.
Perhaps the story of this trip is worth narrating. The mountain was part of an extensive property belonging to the Emperor of Austria, in his character of salt merchant, and contained the famous salt mine of Hallein.
From Salzburg we pushed on to Hallein, to visit the salt mines there, and thence diverged still further from the beaten route for the sake of seeing the water-fall of Golling—the stern terrors of the Œfen—and dream away an hour upon the beautiful and romantic waters of Königsee, the King’s Lake.
The brine that pours with an equable flow into the seething pan at Ebensee, is brought by wooden troughs from the salt mine at Hallein, a distance of thirty miles in a direct line.
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