Vieille Montagne

The rights to operate the Vieille Montagne zinc mine have a wonderful story attached to them. Jean-Jacques Daniel Dony wanted to exploit it at the beginning of the 19th century. Dony was an inventor and chemist and had developed a unique technique to extract zinc from zinc spatter (an ore). A technique that was much better and led to much more extraction than how it was done before. His plan was to appease Napoleon in order to get the exploitation rights. And what better way to do that than to make a link between Napoleon's need and his product: zinc. Napoleon was apparently always cold. Therefore, Dony made a bath in zinc with a thermal siphon that automatically heated and pumped the water around. He gave it as a gift to Napoleon in 1809 as a thank you for the concession he had owned for just 4 years. Napoleon loved his gift and would take the bath everywhere on his campaigns. And Dony retained the rights to operate the quarry. Napoleon's bath can still be found in a museum in Liège.

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