Hello,
thanks for the information.
As I live just a few miles from the village of La Calamine
(German: Kelmis), I would like to add a few details,
if anyone is interested.
Between 1816 und 1919 La Calamine used to be a semi-independent
state (called Neutral Moresnet), because Prussia and the
Netherlands were unable to find an agreement on the ownership
during the Vienna conference.
There was (at least) a second mine in Lontzen, about
3 km away, which was connected to La Calamine via
aerial ropeway. Part of the buildings in Lontzen are still intact.
Today only few remains of the mine and dressing plant in
La Calamine are visible:
- a fragment of the dressing plant (probably a silo)
has been converted into a warehouse (they sell building
materials, tiles etc.)
- some of the old spoil heaps
- a water supply or settling pond
- the former administration building
- sections of the railway track
Kind regards
Harald
Bernard Moore wrote:
>
> Dear All,
> Some info. I found recently that I thought some might find interesting. I
> have 'edited' it to read clearly. Hope you might find it as interesting as I
> have.
> Regards, Bernard
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
> Calamine mines were exploited as a national asset by the French Republic; in
> 1805, Emperor Napoléon I created a 8,200 ha concession around the Vieille
> Montagne des calamines du ci-devant Limbourg. The chemist Dony, a former Canon
> of the St. Peter's Chapter in Liège was awarded the concession. Dony invented
> a zinc reduction oven known in the industrial world as the "Belgian oven" or
> the "Liège oven". In 1813, Dony ceded the concession to the banker Mosselman,
> who founded in 1837 - with his family and the Bank of Belgium - the S.A. des
> Mines et Fonderies de Zinc de la Vieille Montagne. The Altenberg-Vieille
> Montagne mine was declared exhausted in 1884. The mines production between 1553
> and 1787 was evaluated to 184,000 tons (raw), 1,255,000 tons of raw material
> was extracted from 1837 to 1884. The Schmalgraf mine produced 645,797 tons
> (raw) from 1869 to 1933, yielding 337,806 tons of concentrated product. The
> mine, although not exhausted, was abandoned in 1933 for economic reasons. Before
> 1805 and Dony's invention, calamine was specifically used for the
> fabrication of brass and sold to the copperware manufacturers (dinandiers) established
> in the valley of Moselle in Bouvignies.
>
--
Dr.-Ing. Harald Finster / Aachen Germany
http://www.finster-stahlart.de industrial history and architecture
http://www.astrid-aix.de gallery: watercolours and oil paintings
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