The Knochen is a monadnock between the village of

Raschau-Markersbach Raschau-Markersbach is a municipality in the district of Erzgebirgskreis in Saxony, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe afte ...

and the town of Schwarzenberg in the Saxon part of the Ore Mountains in southeastern

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Its summit lies 551.4 metres above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

Description

The heights rise about 100 metres above the floors of the northwards-running Schwarzbach valley and the Große Mittweida valley to the south. The hill contains several lodes and deposits of ore. Within them, non-ferrous metal

skarn Skarns or tactites are hard, coarse-grained metamorphic rocks that form by a process called metasomatism. Skarns tend to be rich in calcium-magnesium-iron-manganese-aluminium silicate minerals, which are also referred to as calc-silicate mineral ...

s occur - some forming gravel deposits and bearing

pyrites The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue ...

- as well as lodes of a

bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element with the symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs ...

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

formation. As early as the 17th century the Knochen was opened up by numerous pits. Among the most important mines were the ''Gottes Seegen'', ''St. Paulus'' and ''Drei Brüder'' pits, as well as the ''Allerheiligen-Fundgrube'', from which silver, bismuth and cobalt ores were extracted in 1713. Besides the mines, in the middle of the 18th century a

vitriol Vitriol is the general chemical name encompassing a class of chemical compound comprising sulfates of certain metalsoriginally, iron or copper. Those mineral substances were distinguished by their color, such as green vitriol for hydrated iron( ...

and sulphur works was established. From 1818 it also extracted

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, ...

using 5 furnaces, which was sold to paint factories in Hamburg, France and Austria. After the Allerheiligen works in Raschau was closed in the face of state competition from

Freiberg Freiberg is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany. It is a so-called ''Große Kreisstadt'' (large county town) and the administrative centre of Mittelsachsen district. Its historic town centre has been placed under heritage c ...

in 1871, it was re-opened at Beierfeld in 1876.

Literature

* Siegfried Sieber: ''Um Aue, Schwarzenberg und Johanngeorgenstadt.'' Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1972, pp. 89ff. Hills of Saxony Mountains of the Ore Mountains Rock formations of Saxony Inselbergs of Europe