Mining activity in the Balme mine began around 1850, but it was only with the interruption of work in the Saint-Jean shaft in 1857, due to the breakdown of a water extraction machine, that the company directed its efforts towards this section, having initially achieved limited results.
It was explored approximately 200 meters horizontally and the same vertically, from 1227 meters to 1431 meters above sea level, across ten levels of galleries. The cultivation starts from a system of horizontal galleries connected to the surface through a vertical service shaft about 100 meters high, through which the movement of extracted material, the passage of miners, and the removal of infiltration water occur. The entrance to this shaft is carved inside a cavern in the rock and named “winch chamber”.
The Balme gallery, whose entrance below the “well square” at an altitude of 1372 meters is no longer visible today, constitutes the main excavation and stretches for more than 200 meters horizontally.
