178

MINES.

MINES OF THE VOSGES AND THE BLACK FOREST . '

These mountains contain several centres of exploration of argentiferous ores oland copper, iron ores, and some mines of manganese and anthracite.

At the Croix-aux-mines, department of the Vosges , a vein of argentiferous lead hasbeen worked, which next to the veins of Spanish America, is one of the greatest known-It is several fathoms thick, and has been traced and mined through an extent of ixi ° rethan a league. It is partly filled with debris, among which occurs some argentifer° uS galena. It contains also phosphate of lead, antimoniated sulphuret of silver, & c 'It runs from N. to S. nearly parallel to the line of junction of the gneiss, and a P° r "phyroid granite, that passes into sienite and porphyry. In several points it cuts acr« sthe gneiss; but it probably occurs also between the two rocks. It has never been work e . tbelow the level of the adjoining valley. The mines opened on this vein produced, 1 ^is said, at the end of the 16th century, 26,0001. per annum; they were still very P r ®'ductive in the middle of the last century, and furnished, in 1756, 2,640,000 lbs. avonof lead, and 6,000 marcs, or 3,230 pounds avoird. of silver. .

Tile veins explored at Sainte Marie of the mines, also traverse the gneiss ; but the^direction is nearly perpendicular to that of the vein of the Croix, from which they aseparated by a barren mountain of sienite. They contain besides galena, several ° rof copper, cobalt, and arsenic ; all more or less argentiferous. There is found also^a^

little distance from Saint Mary of the mines a vein of sulphuret of antimony.

mines of Sainte Marie, opened several centuries ago, are among the most ancientFrance ; and yet they have been worked only down to the level of the adjoin* r>valleys. - e

There has been opened up in the environs of Giromagny, on the southern verge oi ,Vosges , a great number of veins, containing principally argentiferous ores of lead a acopper. They run nearly from N. to S., and traverse porphyries and clay-slatesi>system which has some analogy with the metalliferous district of Schemnitz . *workings have been pushed so far as 440 yards below the surface. These mines w-in a flourishing state in the 14th and 16th centuries ; and became so once more at ,,beginning of the 17th, when they were undertaken by the house of Mazarin. 1“ 1they still produced 100 marcs, fully 52 libs, avoird. of silver in the month.

The mines of La Croix, of Sainte-Marie-aux-mines , and of Giromagny, are , n et eabandbned; but it is hoped that those of the first two localities will be resumedlong. fthe

In the mountains of the Black Forest, separated from the Vosges by the valleyRhine , but composed of tire same rocks, there occur at Badenwciler and near IIocM'not far from Freyburg, workings of lead in great activity. These form six <h stmines, and annually afford 88,000 libs, avoird. of lead, and 200 marcs of silver. ^albFurstenbtrg near Wolfach , particularly at Wittichen, there are mines of copper, c ° n£ , arand silver. The mines of Wittichen produced, some years ago, 1,600 marcs, or j.880 libs, avoird. of silver per annum. They supply a manufactory of smalt, and oarsenical products. A few other inconsiderable mines of the same kind exist Jgrand dutchy of Baden, and in the kingdom of Wurtemberg. 0 {

Several important iron mines are explored in the Vosges ; the principal areFramont, in the department of the Vosges , whose ores are red oxide of iron andhematite, which appear to form veins of great thickness, much ramified, anirregular, in a district composed of greenstone, limestone, and greywacke. “ ypj ie reterranean workings, opened on these deposites, have been hitherto very irregular. r<has been discovered lately in these mines, an extremely rich vein of sulphuret ot ,. e( j;At Rolhan, a little to the east of Framont, thin veins of red oxide of iron are w ^ e j llSsometimes magnetic, owing probably to an admixture of protoxide of iron. The areTun through a granite, that passes into sienite. At Saulnot near Belfort, 1 1iron mines, analogous to those of Framont. ,, e v einS

In the neighborhood of Ihann and Massovaux, near the sources of the M° se an j por-are worked of an iron ore, that traverse formations of greywacke, clay-slate, cle j ie n.aUjphyry. Lastly, in the north of the Vosges, near Bergzabern , Erelenbach, an ^^pactseveral mines have been opened on very powerful veins of brown hematite an In

bog ore, accompanied with a little calamine, and a great deal of sand and e jpostsome points of these veins, the iron ore is replaced by various ores of lea , rppeseabundant being the phosphate, which are explored at Erlenbach andKalzent ia - s n otveins traverse the sandstone of the Vosges , a formation whose geological P osx e ding , a *altogether well known, but which contains iron mines analogous to the pr aria iogi e *Langenthal , at the foot of Mount Tonnerre, and in the palatinate Many ^ o■seem to approximate to the sandstone of the Vosges , the sandstone of the afl d

Saint Avoid .(.Moselle), which include the mine of brown hematite of Crcu ~ la-the lead mine of Bleyberg, analogous to the lead mine of Bleyberg, neChapelle.