An amazing mine

"" The exceptional mining heritage of the Val d'Argent is by all means astonishing and worthy of the greatest interest. Dating mainly from the XVIth century, the shafts and the galleries dug out only a few centimetres  a day, make up a fantastic chapter on the techniques of the time and also make one dream and wonder at them... "

 1502: An amazing event takes place! Silver has been discovered on the Alsacian land. It is the beginning of a big rush in the Val d'Argent. Minors are pouring in from everywhere! 1545, more than 3 000 of them are working in the mines (reference date of the TELLURE site ). Pumps are humming and the foundries are scalping the forests atround...Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines becomes the siege of one of the first big Industrial organization in Europe. Then a dispute breaks out: the Eisenthur case, the underground "Neuenberg war", the place where TELLURE is now located... The minors working in the Eisenthur mine find out that their neighbours, working on the Chêne (Oak) concession have exhausted the whole seam from the opposite side of the mountain. Thus, a tremendous lawsuit is conducted by the JUdge of the mines. Maps are drawn up. Proceeding slowly, the mi,ors finally get to the Engelsbourg's mine  where they discover a block of silver  weighing 592kg…

The Saint-Jean Engelsbourg's mine has been chosen by those who have designed TELLURE mainly for the quality of its networks dating from the XVIth century, and for the impressive specificity of the place featuring a breath taking large cave (180metres) that shows us how vast the underground environment is.

 This seam was first exploited on the whole mountain's height which was about 380 metres high, adding to that 200 metres underground under the level of the lowest gallery called Erbstollen. That network was discovered little by little, step by step, in what represented a fantastic archaelogical and speological voyage. And today we can tour part of that wonderful work. The Engelsbourg Saint-Jean 's network is extended on 4,1 km, its vertical lenght is about 7O metres. There are  at least 3 entrances and a dozen mines met there before. But soon, through time, they were joined in 3 bigger exploitations. The major works date back to the XVIth century. The great pit props removal at Engelsbourg, known as "colonne Saint-Jean" is a famous classic of its kind in terms of mining speleology. It is the oldest cavity of the underground Vosges.