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Stassfurt

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Saxony, and one of the chief seats of the German salt-producing industry, situated on both sides of the Bode, 20 m. S.W. of Magdeburg by the railway to Aschersleben. Pop. (1905), 18,310. It is still surrounded in part by the ruins of its ancient walls, but, with the exception of the parish church of St John (15th century), there are no buildings worthy of special notice. Although saline springs are mentioned here as early as the 13th century, the first attempt to bore for salt was not made until 1839, while the systematic exploitation of the salt-beds, to which the town is indebted for its prosperity, dates only from 1856. The shafts reached deposits of salt at a depth of 850 ft., but the finer and purer layers lie more than 1 roo ft. below the surface. Besides the rock-salt, which is excavated by blasting, the saline deposits of Stassfurt yield a considerable quantity of deliquescent salts and other saline products, which have encouraged the foundation of numerous chemical factories in the town and in the neighbouring village of Leopoldshall, which lies in Anhalt territory. The rock-salt works are mainly government property, while the chemical factories are in private hands.

See Precht, Salzindustrie von Stassfurt and Umgebung (Stassfurt, 1891); and Westphal, Geschichte des koniglichen Salzwerks zu Stassfurt (Berlin, 1901).