The Ferdinandstein is a prominent

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

in the

Harz National Park Harz National Park is a nature reserve in the German federal states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. It comprises portions of the western Harz mountain range, extending from Herzberg and Bad Lauterberg at the southern edge to Bad Harzburg ...

in central

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

Geography

Location

The Ferdinandstein lies at an elevation of 648 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 ...

near

Plessenburg Plessenburg is a village in the town of Ilsenburg in the Harz National Park, in the district of Harz in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Location and establishment In the years 1775-76 Count Henry Ernest of Stolberg-Wernigerode had a grand h ...

in the borough of

Wernigerode Wernigerode () is a town in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Until 2007, it was the capital of the district of Wernigerode. Its population was 35,041 in 2012. Wernigerode is located southwest of Halberstadt, and is picturesquely s ...

in the

Harz Mountains The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German w ...

.Hahnemann (2011), p. 29.

Geology

The rock is a

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies und ...

boulder that is a typical product of

spheroidal weathering Spheroidal weathering is a form of chemical weathering that affects jointed bedrock and results in the formation of concentric or spherical layers of highly decayed rock within weathered bedrock that is known as ''saprolite.'' When saprolite ...

History

The rock is inscribed with the words "''Ferdinands Stein''". Behind it on a smaller rock embedded in the ground is the inscription "''Hier schoss Ferdinand Graf zu Stolberg Wernigerode am 23ten Merz 1798 einen Wolf''" ("''Here Ferdinand, Count of Stolberg- Wernigerode shot a wolf on 23 March 1798''"). This was the last

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

living in the wild that was shot by the Count.

Views and hiking

The rock is checkpoint no. 16 in the

Harzer Wandernadel The Harzer Wandernadel is a system of hiking awards in the Harz mountains in central Germany. The hiker (or mountain biker) can earn awards at different levels of challenge by walking to the various checkpoints in the network and stamping his or ...

hiking network.''Die 222 regulären Stempelstellen''
at www.harzer-wandernadel.de. Accessed on 29 Dec 2012.

References

Literature

* Hahnemann, Marlies (2011). ''Die Harzer Wandernadel'', 2nd ed., Projeckte-Verlag Cornelius, Halle, p. 29. . {{coord, 51.82350, N, 10.65210, E, type:landmark_region:DE-SA, display=title, format=dms Rock formations of the Harz