Tour op der Spur vum Antimon 4 Traditional Cache

About 1 kilometer west of Goesdorf lies in the Lohhecken the antimony mine of Goesdorf. These ore mines made Goesdorf known in earlier times as an industrial town. The place name was formerly casting village and changed in the course of time to the name Goesdorf. It can be assumed that the Celts and Romans dug here for ores of silver, pyrite, quartz, copper and lead, but mainly mined antimonite. In 1354 it was Count Wenzel, who demonstrably issued an authorization for the exploitation of this antimony pit. In 1935, shortly before the mine closed down, a high-grade block of 52 kilos of antimony was found, which was a world record at that time. Antimony, also known as pike luster, is a rather rare metal in our area, which used to be used in cosmetics, alchemy and medicine with often devastating consequences, as the intake of larger amounts leads to poisoning. As a hardening additive for lead alloys for the production of printers and accumulators the metal is processed today. "On the trail of the Antimons" is the name of the geological discovery and orientation path, which is based on a concept of the National Museum of Nature and was created within the framework of the EU initiative LEADER II with the financial help of the municipality of Goesdorf. The associations G.S.R.A. (speleologists) from Everlingen and the local S.I. The municipality of Goesdorf has been working since 1998 on the excavation of the drainage tunnel with the aim of reaching the spilled veins.