At the heart of Kongsberg, the former headquarters of the silver mines company today house the Norway Mining Museum, which retraces the three hundred-year history of the town's silver mines using scale model illustrating working conditions, extraction methods, etc. One of the showpieces is an 18C model showing the procedure for extracting and merging minerals. The old foundry is on the basement of the museum. A unique collection of minerals and rare specimens of pure silver in strange shapes.