SLICING DOWN THE SALT MINE

POPULAR FEATURES OF THE NEW EARL'S COURT EXHIBITION. The popular amusement at Earl's Court this year will probably be sliding down the salt mine (writes the Daily Mail of May 4th). To-morrow will see the opening of the Austrian Exhibition, with representations of many of those features which have made the Tyrol au international holiday ground. An alluring Tyrolese village peopled by natives of the Tyrol, witli landscapes of green lawns and woodlands, and m the background an Imperial palace —this is one among, many of the attractions of the new Austrian Exhibition. The really . novel feature, however, is the representation of a salt mine, which is reached through dimly-lighted 1 passages "hewn through the 6olid rock." At the end of the first passage there i_ an incline, along which runs a smooth wooden beam breast-high. In the real mine the miners slide down this to the lower workings. At Earl's Court the visitors will do the same. They will enjoy it. JThe slide is a new kind of toboggan. It looks steep, but is quite safe, and half a dozen can be sliding down it at once. Visitors having accomplished a swift and merry descent, are conducted along more passages and presently come to an-, other "slide," at the bottom of which there comes into view an underground lake. Having had all the mysteries of salt mining explained, the visitors are taken to the lift to convey them to the .open air, which they feel is hundreds of feet above them. An illusive "lift" is m reudmess, and 1 the passengers m it only realise as they step 'out that the "lift" has not moved at all. and that the sides of the shaft have been passiug downwards instead of the "lift" moving upwards. Tho salt mine is not many feet below the ground after all.