MINES 267 



the Vosges, a great number of veins, containing principally argentiferous ores of lead 

 and copper. They run nearly from N. to S., aria traverse porphyries and clay-slates. 

 The -workings have been pushed as far as 440 yards below the surface. These mines 

 were in a flourishing state in the 14th and 16th centuries ; and became so once more 

 at the beginning of the 17th, when they were undertaken by the house of Mazarin. 

 In 1743 they still produced 100 marcs, fully 52 Ibs. avoird. of silver in the month. 



The mines of Lacroix, of Sainte Marie-aux-Mines, and of Giromagny, are now 

 abandoned but it is hoped that those of the first two localities will be resumed ere 

 long. 



In the mountains of the Black Forest, separated from the Vosges by the valley of 

 the Khine, but composed of the same rocks, there occur at Badenweiler and near 

 Hochbcrg, not far from Freiberg, mines which have at times been actively worked. In 

 the Fiirstenberg district, near Wotfach, particularly at Wittichen and Schapbach, there 

 are mines of copper, cobalt and silver. The mines of Wittichen produced, some 

 years ago, 1,600 marcs, or near 880 Ibs. avoird. of silver per annum. They supply a 

 manufacture of smalt, and one of arsenical products. A few other inconsiderable 

 mines of the same kind exist in the grand-duchy of Baden, and in Wurtamberg. 



Several important iron mines are explored in the Vosges ; the principal are those 

 of Framont, whose ores are red oxide of iron, with crystalline specular ore, which 

 appear to form veins of great thickness, much ramified, and very irregular, in a 

 district composed of greenstone, limestone and clay-slates. The subterranean 

 workings, opened on these deposits, have been hitherto very irregular. There has 

 been discovered lately in these mines, an extremely rich vein of sulphuret of copper. 

 At Eothau, a little to the east of Framont, thin veins of red oxide of iron are worked ; 

 sometimes magnetic, owing probably to an admixture of protoxide of iron. These 

 veins run through a granite, that passes into syenite. At Saulnot near Belfort, there 

 are iron mines, analogous to those of Framont. 



In the neighbourhood of Ihann and Massovaux, near the sources of the Moselle, 

 Veins are worked of an iron ore, that traverse formations of greywacke, clay-slate, 

 and porphyry. Lastly, in the north of the Vosges, near Bergzabern, Erlenbach, and 

 Schenau, several mines have been opened on very powerful veins of brown hsematite 

 and compact bog ore, accompanied with a little calamine, and a great deal of sand and 

 debris. In some points of these veins, the iron ore is replaced by various ores of lead, 

 the most abundant being the phosphate, which are explored at Erlenbach and 

 Katzenthal. These veins traverse the sandstone of the Vosges : a formation whose 

 geological position is not altogether well known, but which contains iron mines 

 analogous to the preceding at Langenthal, at the foot of Mount Tonnerre, and in the 

 Palatinate. Many analogies seem to approximate to the sandstone of the Vosges, the 

 sandstone of the environs of Saint Avoid (Moselle), which include the mine of brown 

 haematite of Greutzwald, and the lead mine of Bleiberg, analogous to that of Bleiberg, 

 near Aix-la-Chapelle. 



At Cruttnich and Tholey, to the north of Sarrbriick, mines of manganese are 

 worked, famous for the good quality of their products. The deposit exploited at 

 Cruttnich, seems to be inclosed in the sandstone of the Vosges, and to constitute a 

 Vein in it analogous to the iron veins mentioned above. 



There has been also opened a manganese mine at Lavelline near La Croix-aux- 

 Mines, in a district of gneiss with porphyry. 



In the Vosges and the Black Forest there are several deposits of anthracite (stone* 

 coal), of which two are actually worked, the one at Zunswir near Offenbourg, in the 

 territory of Baden, and the other at Uvoltz, near Cernay, in the department of the 

 Upper Rhine. There are also several deposits of the true coal formation on the 

 flanks of the Vosges. 



MINES SITUATED m THE SCHISTOSE FORMATIONS OP THE BANKS OF THE RHINE, 



AND IN THE ARDENNES. 



The transition lands, which form, in the N.W. of Germany and in Flanders, an 

 extensive range of hilly country, and culminate in the Hiindsruck, the Taunus, the 

 Eifel, and the Westerwald mountains, include several famous mines of iron, zinc, lead, 

 and copper. The latter lie on the right bank of the Rhino, in the territories of 

 Nassau and Berg, at Baden, Augstbach, Rheinbreitbach, and near Dillenburg. That 

 of Rheinbreitbach yielded formerly 110,000 Ibs. avoird. of copper per annum, and 

 those of the environs of Dillenburg have more recently furnished annually 176,000 

 Ibs. There are also some mines of argentiferous lead in the same regions. The 

 most remarkable are in the territory of Nassau, such as those of Holzappsl, Pfingstwiese, 

 Lowenburg, and Augstbach on the Wied, and Ehrenthal on the. banks of the Rhine, 

 which altogether produce 600 tons of lead and 3,500 marcs of silver. To the above, 



