The Pilsudski Chamber at 130.9 m underground, was created by combining the excavations of two adjacent blocks of green salt.
In the 1830s, the Austrians linked the twin chambers with a 10-m tunnel when setting up the first tourist route.
They also built wooden stairs and a platform, and filled the bottom of the chamber with brine.
A special tourist attraction was provided by raft crossing through the tunnel to the accompaniment of fireworks and music played by the mine orchestra.

The tourist route was in use until 1915, when it was witness to a tragic accident. Several Prussian soldiers tipped over the ferry, and fell into the brine.
Bodies are practically impossible to drown in water with a high density of salt. The salt keeps you afloat, pushing you up and out of the water.
And yet, the soldiers died. They could not drown, but the raft tipped over and trapped them underneath it.
They could neither lift it, nor dive into the salty water to swim out. They suffocated under the overturned ferry.

The 19th-century figure of Saint John of Nepomuk, the patron saint of the drowning, was carved in rock salt in 1829 by a miner Jozef Grabowski.