Malachite is a by-product of copper

Malachite is a by-product of copper

[September, 2012] There are some things I learned by visiting German gem stone route.

One of them is that the beautiful Malachite can be dug from copper mines.

The workers dig the place where the nice colour are showing.

I do not know if they are still doing it now, because where I leaned this was the copper mine in Fischbach which used to be one of the main ones in the country, but closed at the end of 18th century.

Other things I learned there was that the miners were smaller people, their life was very hard without seeing any sun lights, but the treatment was not bad, including the education of their children, and so on.

Also, mines were closed to women.

If a woman entered the mine, the god of mine would be very angry, apparently.

By the way the one who advised us to visit this mine was the staff at the rent-a-car office.

When we said to him that we were going to Herrstein, I heard him saying ‘ Visit the Fish Bar, then’.

I thought there was a seafood restaurant called Fish Bar in Herrstein, but when I asked the details, I found out that was Fischbach where this mine is located.