Schneeberg

Schneeberg, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, in the Erzgebirge, 14 m. S.E. from Zwickau by rail. Pop. (1905) 9 0 34. It contains a handsome Gothic parish church, one of the largest ecclesiastical buildings in Saxony, dedicated to St Wolfgang, with an altar-piece by Lucas Cranach the elder, and numerous tombs; a gymnasium; a school of lace-making and a hospital. Hand-made lace and silver mining, formerly its two most important industries, have greatly declined. The first has been almost entirely superseded by machine-made goods, while the second appears to have languished owing to exhaustion of the mines. Cobalt, bismuth and nickel are worked and yield satisfactory results, and machine-made lace, embroidery, porcelain, corsets, shoes and colours are among the chief of its other industrial products. Schneeberg is also noted for a snuff made of aromatic herbs, which commands a ready sale in the district.

See Lehmann, Chronik von Schneeberg (Schneeberg, 1837-1840).