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Last modified: 2014-01-12 by ivan sache
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Flag of Vielsalm - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 9 January 2008
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The municipality of Vielsalm (7,339 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 13,976 ha) is the north-easternmost municipality of the Province of Luxembourg, located in Upper-Ardenne, on the border with the Province of Liège. The municipality of Vielsalm is made since 1976 of the former municipalities of Vielsalm, Bihain, Grand-Halleux and Petit-Thier.
Vielsalm is a very ancient place of settlement, as proved by Neolithic
polishers and remains of a Celtic wall found in the region. Vielsalm
means "Old Salm" (Salm la Vieille); here, viel- has to be read in
French ("old") and not in German ("a lot"). The name of the village was
erroneously assigned in the 19th century to the river Glain, that
waters it. The river was indeed known locally as "Eau de Salm",
following a common use in French-speaking Belgium (eau means "water",
here "river"), erroneously shortened to Salm.
Vielsalm is the cradle of the Counts of Salm, who had a castle near the
parish church, from which nothing has remained. The Counts built in the
14th century a new castle a few kilometers south of Vielsalm, around which
developed the village of Salmchâteau (lit., "Salm castle"). Two big
towers and the narrow entrance gate of the castle are still visible.
Located in the Ardenne, Vielsalm has been for long a place of sports
activity. In the 19th century, the local aristocracy scoured the
forests, hunitng with hounds. The Baraque de Fraiture (aka Baraque
Fraiture), located 652 m a.s.l. and therefore the third highest point
of Belgium, is the place of a popular ski resort. The Blueberries'
Festival (Fête des Myrtilles) is held every year on 21 July, with a
massive consumption of blueberry pies.
The old massif of Ardenne has been subjected to several geological
episodes, including metamorphism. The region of Vielsalm is
particularly rich in mineral resources. Peat, slates, iron, manganese
and even gold have been exploited for centuries there.
The slates of Vielsalm have been used for ages to make the roundish
cherbins slating the roofs of traditional houses. Exploited at least
since 1690, the slates of Vielsalm are easy to cleave in sheets of 3-4
mm in thickness, which is mandatory for slating roofs. The slate "vein"
of Vielsalm has a thickness of 30 m and a length of 2 km; after the
exhaustion of outcropping slate, pits had to be dug because of the
60-65 degree angle of inclination of the "vein". Some pits reached a
depth of 60 m, which made the exploitation of slate more and more
dangerous and less and less profitable. Because of the competition with
synthetic products, the slate quarries of Vielsalm were all closed in
the 1960s.
Vielsalm has given its name to a unique stone called coticule de
Vielsalm, aka the pierre à rasoir belge, the Belgian razor stone. Not particulary beautiful, the coticule is a yellowish, schistose stone
rich in spessartine, a variety of garnet (manganese
aluminium silicate, Mn3Al2(SiO4)3). Very abrasive, the spessartine crystals makes of the coticule the best sharpening material ever found, surpassing all the artificial materials. According to Michel Caubergs, the exploitation of coticule started in Vielsalm not later than 1625, while foreign merchants had already shown interest for the stone in 1686.
There were some 50 full-time workers involved in coticule extraction in
Vielsalm around 1860. The biggest mine, known as the Old Rock, also
exploited as a slate mine, was dug in 1800 and closed in 1982. Today,
there is only one company extracting coticule, Ardennes Coticule SPRL,
ran by Michel Celis in Lierneux. The preparation of coticule is quite tedious; one ton of raw material is required to produce one kg of good abrasive stone, usually sold in cubes of 10-20 cm in edge. Cut with
diamond saws from stone blocks, the cubes have their sides made
completely flat with emery paper, then smoothed with finer emery
paper, and eventually polished with soft stones to suppress any
scratch. The coticule cubes are used to sharpen any kind of blades,
mostly in surgery, cabinet-making and cutlery. The famous knives from
Laguiole (Auvergne, France) are sharpened with coticule.
The Coticule Museum is housed in a former coticule-polishing workshop,
set up in Salmchâteau in 1923.
The village of Ottré has given its name to a mineral found there in
1819 by Dethier, who called it ottrelite. Like spessartine, ottrelite
is a orthosilicate, of green to black colour and of formula
(Mn++,Fe++,Mg)2 Al4 Si2 O10 (OH)4. According to the amount of
Fe-Mn-Mg, ottrelite was divided into ottrelite sensu stricto and
ferriferous ottrelite, and distinguished from ferriferous chloritoid
sensu stricto and ferriferous sismondine (L. Bustamante-Santa Cruz.
1995. "On the controversial Ottrelite Term", Natuurwetenschappelijk
Tijdschrift, 75: 46-48).
In 1872, a new mineral was found in a quartz vein in Salmchâteau.
Lasaulx and Bettendorf named the mineral "ardennite" while Pisani named
it "dewalquite", after the famous Belgian geologist G. Dewalque. After
a tough controversy, the mineral was eventually officially named
ardennite, and was thought to be specific of Salmchâteau and Bihain.
From 1922 onwards, other specimens, of lower quality, were found in
Italy, Switzerland and India. Ardennite is a sorosilicate, of yellow to
dark brown colour, of formula (Mn,Ca,Mg)4 (Al,Mn+++,Fe+++,Mg)6
(As,V,P,Si) (O,OH)4 (SiO4)2 (Si3 O10).
Sources:
Ivan Sache & Rob Raeside, 10 December 2007
According to Armoiries communales en Belgique. Communes wallonnes, bruxelloises et germanophones [w2v03a], the flag of Vielsalm is
white with two red salmons acccosted.
The flag is a banner of the municipal arms.
The Gelre Armorial shows the canting arms of Henri VII, Count of Salm (Grave v. Salmen, #1501, folio 105v) as "Argent two salmons gules
accosted".
The County of Salm emerged in Vielsalm after the partition of the
County of Saarbrücken in 1019; it was ruled by the lords of Salm, a
junior branch of the House of Luxembourg. In 1165, the County of Salm
was split into the County of Lower-Salm (in today's Belgium and
Luxembourg) and the County of Upper-Salm (in today's department of
Vosges, France). The Counts of Lower Salm became extinct in 1416, and the County was inherited by the House of Reifferscheid-Dyck.
Among the distant descenders of the Counts of Salm are the Princes of Salm-Salm.
Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 10 December 2007
