gems, garnet, Bohemia, Czech, pyrope, almandine

From the town of Trebnitz in northern Bohemia, a well-maintained post road leads through fertile countryside to Liebshausen. Along this road one travels approximately in the main strike direction of the Bohemian Central Uplands, and not far from their foot. To the east lies the Kostial, farther west the Sollaner Berg and the Wostrey towering above them both, as well as countless other peaks and grotesque mountain forms of this extraordinarily varied range, while to the south only the Hasenburg near Klappai, with its ruin making it recognisable from afar, and a few other elevations provide variety in the monotonous Cretaceous landscape extending to the horizon on which the eye rests. Along this road, shortly after the last houses of Trebnitz are behind us and the first rise in the ground has been crossed, we have the opportunity to observe signs of mining activity on both sides of the road. Here there are heaps of large stones, there shafts several metres deep, or, as at Podseditz, an open-cast mine worked according to established mining practice, which attracts our attention. If one follows one of the small watercourses that cross the road and flow towards the valley of the Eger, one may also see, when work in the fields does not occupy the people too heavily, men and women engaged in washing. Piles of sand are processed in simple apparatus in the flowing water.