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The brief but exact description of the Wieliczka and Bochnia Salt Mines dating back to the year 1518 is a unique historic document. The individual offices and categories of workers were described it side by side with the types of duties performed and remuneration so that everyone could understand the mechanisms governing the operation of the individual parts of the Mine's structure. Quoted in the document and illustrated with examples are also the complex formulae for the calculation of dues and fees for labour and goods. Furthermore the names of the underground cavities where the miners worked are given. The description of the venture is complemented with the detailed description of commercial varieties of salt, their prices and sales procedures, as well as of the manners of replenishing the Mines' own stocks and tools. It is to be emphasised that this work of Salt Mine clerks of the year 1518 is the only document to be found among European writings that allows such a careful insight into the structure of a major industrial production plant at so ancient a time. There was no other mine that would have had a comparatively detailed description at that time. The nearly one-thousand-person-strong workforce employed in the Royal Salt Mines in the Land of Małopolska (Lesser Poland) certainly ranks it among the few European enterprises of such considerable employment that operated at turn of the 15th century.
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