The Rammelsberg and the deeper mines higher in the Harz could not have operated without enormous quantities of moving water. From the thirteenth century onward, the foresters and engineers of the Oberharz built a system of dams, ponds, and channels that captured rain and snowmelt and routed it down to the wheels that pumped the mines and crushed the ore. By 1900 there were more than 100 ponds and 500 kilometres of ditches.
The system is still largely intact and was added to the Goslar UNESCO listing in 2010. The most rewarding short walk from Goslar starts at the Hahnenklee–Bocksberg cable car a fifteen-minute drive south, leads through pine forest along a Hauptkunstgraben (main miners' ditch), and loops back via two of the silvery dam-ponds. Allow three hours; bring water and a sandwich.