Freiberg

Freiberg, an ancient city of Germany, the centre of administration for the Saxon mines, is situated on the northern slope of the Erzgebirge Mountains, at a railway junction, 20 miles SW. of Dresden. The existing cathedral, built in the late Gothic style, on the site of an earlier one (burned in 1484), contains tombs of the Saxon electors of the Albertine line, and has a Romanesque portal called the Golden Gate. The town owes its origin to its silver-mines, discovered about the year 1163. Parts of the ancient walls and flanking towers still remain. At the school of mines, founded in 1765, the most famous institution of the kind in Europe, instruction is given in surveying, mining, the preparation of ores, geology, mineralogy, &c. It possesses a laboratory, a library, a collection of mining models, and mineralogical and geological collections. The mineral ores extracted near Freiberg are silver, bismuth, nickel, cobalt, zinc, arsenic, &c., the mines giving employment to about 6800 men. The manufactures consist principally of gold and silver ware, wire, chemicals, machines, leather, and cigars. Founded in 1175, Freiberg suffered more than once in the Thirty Years' War and the Seven Years' War. Pop. (1875) 23,559; (1890) 28,995.