The Neugrabenflöße (also called the ''Floßgraben''), was a roughly 18 km long '' Kunstgraben'' dating to the 17th century. It enabled the

rafting Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...

of timber for the mining and

smelting Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron-making, iron, copper extraction, copper ...

industries in the

Ore Mountains The Ore Mountains (, or ; ) lie along the Czech–German border, separating the historical regions of Bohemia in the Czech Republic and Saxony in Germany. The highest peaks are the Klínovec in the Czech Republic (German: ''Keilberg'') at ab ...

of eastern Germany. It ran from the River Flöha near Fleyh ( Fláje) to the

Freiberger Mulde The Freiberger Mulde (also called the ''Östliche Mulde'' or Eastern Mulde; ) is the right-hand, headstream of the river Mulde, whose catchment covers an area of in the Czech Republic and Germany in central Saxony. It has a volumetric flow of ...

near Clausnitz in the Ore Mountains.

Course

Starting at Fleyh this artificial water channel ran for about 3.5 km in a northwesterly direction to the eastern end of Bohemian Georgenthal (today Český Jiřetín). Here it changed direction by almost 180° and ran for about 3 km eastwards into the Rauschenbach valley. After crossing the Rauschenbach stream and the Bohemian-German border it continued towards the west. North of

Cämmerswalde The village of Cämmerswalde in the municipality of Neuhausen/Erzgeb., Neuhausen/Erzgeb is in the south of the Saxon district of Landkreis Mittelsachsen, Mittelsachsen in eastern Germany. The state-recognised spa resort with its 800-year-old histo ...

it crossed the

watershed Watershed may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, an area of land where surface water converges (North American usage) Music * Watershed Music Festival, an annual country ...

between Flöha and the Freiberger Mulde rivers. From there on the ditch ran in a northerly direction through Clausnitz and discharged finally after about 18 km at the southeastern end of Clausnitz into the River Rachel. Shortly behind Fláje the ditch crosses a steep hillside and the channel is hewn out of the rock. The channel also crosses several streams en route to Clausnitz, for example, it crosses the Rauschenbach after about 6.5 km and the Czech-German border that runs along it here.

History

The channel was dug in the years 1624–1629 at the instigation of the lords of

Lobkowicz The House of Lobkowicz (''Lobkovicové'' in modern Czech, sg. ''z Lobkovic''; ''Lobkowitz'' in German) is an important Bohemian noble family that dates back to the 14th century and is one of the oldest noble families of the region. Over the ce ...

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

and Schönberg in

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

. It was commissioned by the Saxon prince-elector, John George I. By 1569 the Saxon chief mining engineer (''Oberbergmeister''), Martin Planer, had produced the first plans for a rafting channel from the source region of the River Flöha to the Freiberger Mulde, which had to cross the watershed of both river catchment areas. But the Neugrabenflöße was not built until the 17th century to new plans by chief smelting officer (''Oberhüttenverwalter''), Friedrich Lingke. The rafting channel was used for almost 250 years to transport logs from Fleyh in the

Freiberg Freiberg () is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany, with around 41,000 inhabitants. The city lies in the foreland of the Ore Mountains, in the Saxon urbanization axis, which runs along the northern edge of the Elster and ...

mining region. With the construction of the railway link from Freiberg to Rechenberg-Bienenmühle,

timber rafting Timber rafting is a method of transporting felled tree trunks by tying them together to make rafts, which are then drifted or pulled downriver, or across a lake or other body of water. It is arguably, after log driving, the second cheapest mea ...

on the channel ceased.

Closure of the mines and present state

Following the closure of the mines the channel continued to be used until the 1940s to supply water for the Georgendorf Paper Factory. After the factory shut the Neugrabenflöße was forgotten. Today many parts of the channel are filled or levelled.

Literature

* Zdeněk Bárta: ''Plavební kanál Fláje-Clausnitz v Krušných horách / Der Floßgraben Fláje - Clausnitz im Erzgebirge.'' Verlag Krušnohorská iniciativa, Mariánské Radčice, 1999, (Texts in German and Czech) * Vít Joza (übersetzt von Norbert Krutský): ''Plavební kanál Fláje-Clausnitz v Krusných horách. strucný pruvodce historií a soucasností významé technické památky (Der Floßgraben Fleyh-Clausnitz im Erzgebirge).'' Verlag Krusnohorská Iniciativa, Mariánské Radcice, 2002, (Texts in German and Czech) * G. Müller: ''Zur Forst- und Wirtschafts-Geschichte des Forstbezirkes Marienberg im Erzgebirge.'', Tharandter Forstliche Jahrbücher, Vol. 86; 1935 * J. Siegel: ''Veränderung des Waldbildes im östlichen Erzgebirge im Wandel der geschichtlichen Jahrhunderte.'', Tharandter Forstliche Jahrbücher Vol. 78; 1927 * H. Wilsdorf, W. Herrmann, W., K. Löffler: ''Bergbau - Wald - Flöße.'', Freiberger Forschungshefte, Berlin, 1960 * J. Winkler: ''Die Neugrabenflöße zwischen Flöha und der Freiberger Mulde.'', Mitteilungen des Landesvereines Sächsischer Heimatschutz, Vol. 24, Ed. 1/4; 1935 * ''Von Flöß- und andern Wassergraben.'' In: ''Historischer Schauplatz derer natürlichen Merkwürdigkeiten in dem Meißnischen Ober-Ertzgebirge.'' Leipzig, 1699, p. 196
digitalised

External links

Information about the Neugrabenflöße

accessed on 8 August 2009 * Photographs at Panoramio.com
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Neugrabenflosse Mining in the Ore Mountains Canals in Germany Rivers of the Ore Mountains Kunstgraben Canals opened in the 17th century Buildings and structures completed in 1629 Transport infrastructure completed in the 1620s 1629 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire