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Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 302, 16 September 1933, Page 21

MUSHROOM CITY IN PARIS. The catacombs of Paris are really subterranean stone quarries, from which the famous Paris Opera and many other public buildings obtained their building material. They belong to the State, and large areas are now let to growers of the famous champignons de Paris, mushrooms much prized by French gourmets. This underground city, with streets as wide as those on the surface, and along which run laden lorries piled with this dainty, is the greatest mushroom-produc-ing centre in the world. Many miles of pipes are laid down for the watering of the mushroom beds. The mushrooms are picked every morning at five o’clock, and packed into baskets nnd dispatched to every town in France. All the morning the streets of this underground city resound to the passing motor-lorries—some of eight-ton capacity—leaving for the Paris market. The city has a perfect system of ventilation operated by huge petrol-driven fans. The inhabitants of the mushroom city live in eight miles of streets about 100 feet below the surface.