Jáchymov

The five-hundred-year history of this small town in the heart of Krušné hory is a rich one; shortly after its foundation in the 16th century the city became famous for its silver mines and technological advances in mining and natural sciences which made the city attractive for scholars from all over Europe. In the 19th century Jáchymov became famous for the production of unique uranium colours; at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, local pitchblende shocked the world by the discovery of two new radioactive elements: polonium and radium. The grim history of Jáchymov started in the middle of the 20th century when the Communist regime turned thousands of its own citizens into slaves and forced them to toil in uranium mines. Since the beginning of mining in the Jáchymov area, miners, mining officers and scientists have been discovering unique minerals whose quality and variety remains unrivalled until today. These discoveries made Jáchymov a mineralogical locality of global importance. The book consists of three main parts: the history of Jáchymov silver bonanzas, a short review of the geological situation, and an overview of the most important primary and secondary minerals. The books represents a result of an extensive research in archives as well as in Jáchymov underground mining areas; it is appended by a number of photographs of minerals from Czech and foreign museums and private collections, works of art created from Jáchymov minerals as well as reproductions of old maps and photographs from the terrain, both from the surface and underground.