Wieliczka

In the 14th century the salt of Wieliczka and Bochnia supplied about a third of the royal treasury's income. Casimir III the Great walled the town, took the miners under his protection and built the Saltworks Castle, from which both mines were run. Over the centuries horse-driven treadmills of Hungarian and Saxon design were installed to haul the salt to the surface; by the 16th century travellers were already coming to see the galleries for themselves. In the Deluge of 1655–1660 the Swedes plundered and burned the mine and kept a garrison over the miners, until a Polish force of about 3,000 drove them from Wieliczka and Bochnia. After the First Partition of 1772 the mine passed to the Habsburgs, and miners from Germany, Hungary and Croatia came to work it.