Do people still collect salt from salt caves in the US?”
A salt mine is an operation involved in the extraction of salt from rock salt or halite, a type of evaporitic deposit[1]. Areas known for their salt mines include Kilroot [1] near Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland (over 100 years old and more than 25 km of passages), Khewra in Pakistan, Tuzla in Bosnia, Wieliczka and Bochnia in Poland, Hallstatt and Salzkammergut in Austria, Rheinberg in Germany, Slănic in Romania, Provadiya in Bulgaria, Avery Island in Louisiana, United States, the wich towns of Cheshire and Worcestershire in England, and the Detroit Salt Company’s 1,500-acre (10 km2) subterranean complex 1,100 feet (340 m) beneath the city of Detroit.[2] The Sifto Salt Mine in Goderich, Ontario, Canada is one of the largest salt mines in the world.
The idea of a fun trip to a salt mine may sound a little dubious. And as you head out through the suburbs you may wonder just why you are leaving the glories of the city behind. However, it is not just the antiquity of these mines that makes them worth the trip (things got fully underway here as early as the thirteenth century), they are also home to one of the wonders of Poland. This is the chapel of the Blessed Kinga, which to all intents and purposes is a full blown church, the only difference being that it is 200 metres undergound, and carved entirely from salt, (including the chandeliers that hang from the ceiling). It is a quite astounding sight, and all the more so as it was carved not by an outsider, but by a group of gifted miners themselves. Entering the mines involves a long descent by stairwell, and it feels very much like a Jules Verne Journey to the Centre of the Earth type adventure. The chapel of the Blessed Kinga is the undoubted show-stopper, yet it is only one of sev
