. Transylvania; its products and its people. With maps and numerous ills. after photographs. ld run in all directionsthroughout the whole mass, and reach to the very summitof the mountain. On gazing at the vast cavities hollowed out, the enor-mous quantities of the metal obtained here by the Ro-mans is a matter of surprise; but nothing I had yet seengave me such an idea of their power—of what may beachieved by the uninterrupted persevering toil of thou-sands of men working on and on, unrestingly for a cen-tury—as this mountain, the very form and nature of whichthey have completely changed by t
. Transylvania; its products and its people. With maps and numerous ills. after photographs. ld run in all directionsthroughout the whole mass, and reach to the very summitof the mountain. On gazing at the vast cavities hollowed out, the enor-mous quantities of the metal obtained here by the Ro-mans is a matter of surprise; but nothing I had yet seengave me such an idea of their power—of what may beachieved by the uninterrupted persevering toil of thou-sands of men working on and on, unrestingly for a cen-tury—as this mountain, the very form and nature of whichthey have completely changed by their labour. The massof rock has been hollowed like a crater, and you stand inthe centre of the mountain, and looking up, hundreds of 542 TRANSYLVANIA. feet above you, behold the sky. There, too, on the sidesare everywhere huge ribs of stone, and ledge above ledgewith cavernous openings, and through these portals youpenetrate again into the very heart of the rock; andthrough a dark passage, you creep along and reach thus asecond such crater :—this is Csetatye mica, the little Aj \%. THE OSBTATYE. fortress. All around you, and for full a hundred Feetupwards, the rock has been scooped out in spiral pass _ wind up and up, you know not whither. Upwardsthey lead like some marvellous stair j and, at the opening at top, the blue heaven again looks in. A> yon stand inthis hollow and gaze at the walls that enlock you, it isexactly like being at the bottom of a gigantic shell, whichhas been bored through, showing all its convolution? andinner spiral structure. Here and there, too, - nr eyemounts, following the winding lines, you see lateral EL DORADO. 543 galleries leading into the mountain. Millions of tons ofstone have thus been taken to obtain the gold, with whichthe veins running through it were overflowing. The hugerock is now a mere husk ; the core has been hewn out andcarried away.* The sight impressed me profoundly; its wildness, andthe sense of almost superhuman
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookidtransylvania, bookyear1865
