Part 28

The North German plain presents little variety, yet is not absolutely uniform. A row of low hills runs generally parallel to the mountain ranges already noticed, at a distance of 20 to 30 m. to the north. To these belongs the upper Silesian coal-basin, which occupies a considerable area in south-eastern Silesia. North of the middle districts of the Elbe country the heights are called the Flaming hills. Westward lies as the last link of this series the Luneburger Heide or Heath, between the Weser and Elbe, north of Hanover. A second tract, of moderate elevation, sweeps round the Baltic, without, however, approaching its shores. This plateau contains a considerable number of lakes, and is divided into three portions by the Vistula and the Oder. The most eastward is the so-called Prussian Seenplatte. Spirdingsee (430 ft. above sea-level and 46 sq. m. in area) and Mauersee are the largest lakes; they are situated in the centre of the plateau, and give rise to the Pregel. Some peaks near the Russian frontier attain to 1000 ft. The Pomeranian Seenplatte, between the Vistula and the Oder, extends from S.W. to N.E., its greatest elevation being in the neighbourhood of Danzig (Turmberg, 1086 ft.). The Seenplatte of Mecklenburg, on the other hand, stretches from S.E. to N.W., and most of its lakes, of which the Muritz is the largest, send their waters towards the Elbe. The finely wooded heights which surround the bays of the east coast of Holstein and Schleswig may be regarded as a continuation of these Baltic elevations. The lowest parts, therefore, of the North German plain, excluding the sea-coasts, are the central districts from about 52 deg. to 53 deg. N. lat., where the Vistula, Netze, Warthe, Oder, Spree and Havel form vast swampy lowlands (in German called _Bruche_), which have been considerably reduced by the construction of canals and by cultivation, improvements due in large measure to Frederick the Great. The Spreewald, to the S.E. of Berlin, is one of the most remarkable districts of Germany. As the Spree divides itself there into innumerable branches, enclosing thickly wooded islands, boats form the only means of communication. West of Berlin the Havel widens into what are called the Havel lakes, to which the environs of Potsdam owe their charms. In general the soil of the North German plain cannot be termed fertile, the cultivation nearly everywhere requiring severe and constant labour. Long stretches of ground are covered by moors, and there turf-cutting forms the principal occupation of the inhabitants. The greatest extent of moorland is found in the westernmost parts of the plain, in Oldenburg and East Frisia. The plain contains, however, a few districts of the utmost fertility, particularly the tracts on the central Elbe, and the marsh lands on the west coast of Holstein and the north coast of Hanover, Oldenburg and East Frisia, which, within the last two centuries, the inhabitants have reclaimed from the sea by means of immense dikes.

_Rivers._--Nine independent river-systems may be distinguished: those of the Memel, Pregel, Vistula (Weichsel), Oder, Elbe, Weser, Ems, Rhine and Danube. Of these the Pregel, Weser and Ems belong entirely, and the Oder mostly, to the German empire. The Danube has its sources on German soil; but only a fifth part of its course is German. Its total length is 1750 m., and the Bavarian frontier at Passau, where the Inn joins it, is only 350 m. distant from its sources. It is navigable as far as Ulm, 220 m. above Passau; and its tributaries the Lech, Isar, Inn and Altmuhl are also navigable. The Rhine is the most important river of Germany, although neither its sources nor its mouths are within the limits of the empire. From the Lake of Constance to Basel (122 m.) the Rhine forms the boundary between the German empire and Switzerland; the canton of Schaffhausen, however, is situated on the northern bank of the river. From Basel to below Emmerich the Rhine belongs to the German empire--about 470 m. or four-sevenths of its whole course. It is navigable all this distance as are also the Neckar from Esslingen, the Main from Bamberg, the Lahn, the Lippe, the Ruhr, the Mosel from Metz, with its affluents the Saar and Sauer. Sea-going vessels sail up the Ems as far as Halte, and river craft as far as Greven, and the river is connected with a widely branching system of canals, as the Ems-Jade and Dortmund-Ems canals. The Fulda, navigable for 63 m., and the Werra, 38 m., above the point where they unite, form by their junction the Weser, which has a course of 271 m., and receives as navigable tributaries the Aller, the Leine from Hanover, and some smaller streams. Ocean-going steamers, however, cannot get as far as Bremen, and unload at Bremerhaven. The Elbe, after a course of 250 m., enters German territory near Bodenbach, 490 m. from its mouth. It is navigable above this point through its tributary, the Moldau, to Prague. Hamburg may be reached by vessels of 17 ft. draught. The navigable tributaries of the Elbe are the Saale (below Naumburg), the Havel, Spree, Elde, Sude and some others. The Oder begins to be navigable almost on the frontier at Ratibor, 480 m. from its mouth, receiving as navigable tributaries the Glatz Neisse and the Warthe. Only the lower course of the Vistula belongs to the German empire, within which it is a broad, navigable stream of considerable volume. On the Pregel ships of 3000 tons reach Konigsberg, and river barges reach Insterburg; the Alle, its tributary, may also be navigated. The Memel is navigable in its course of 113 m. from the Russian frontier. Germany is thus a country abounding in natural waterways, the total length of them being estimated at 7000 m. But it is only the Rhine, in its middle course, that has at all times sufficient volume of water to meet the requirements of a good navigable river.

_Lakes._--The regions which abound in lakes have already been pointed out. The Lake of Constance or Bodensee (204-3/4 sq. m.) is on the frontier of the empire, portions of the northern banks belonging severally to Bavaria, Wurttemberg and Baden. In the south the largest lakes are the Chiemsee (33 sq. m.); the Ammersee and the Wurmsee. A good many smaller lakes are to be found in the Bavarian Alps. The North German plain is dotted with upwards of 500 lakes, covering an area of about 2500 sq. m. The largest of these are the three Haffs--the Oder Haff covering 370 sq. m., the Frische Haff, 332, and the Kurische Haff, 626. The lakes in the Prussian and Pomeranian provinces, in Mecklenburg and in Holstein, and those of the Havel, have already been mentioned. In the west the only lakes of importance are the Steinhuder Meer, 14 m. north-west of Hanover, and the Dummersee on the southern frontier of Oldenburg. (P. A. A.)

_Geology._--Germany consists of a floor of folded Palaeozoic rocks upon which rest unconformably the comparatively little disturbed beds of the Mesozoic system, while in the North German plain a covering of modern deposits conceals the whole of the older strata from view, excepting some scattered and isolated outcrops of Cretaceous and Tertiary beds. The rocks which compose the ancient floor are thrown into folds which run approximately from W.S.W. to E.N.E. They are exposed on the one hand in the neighbourhood of the Rhine and on the other hand in the Bohemian _massif_. With the latter must be included the Frankenwald, the Thuringerwald, and even the Harz. The oldest rocks, belonging to the Archaean system, occur in the south, forming the Vosges and the Black Forest in the west, and the greater part of the Bohemian _massif_, including the Erzgebirge, in the east. They consist chiefly of gneiss and schist, with granite and other eruptive rocks. Farther north, in the Hunsruck, the Taunus, the Eifel and Westerwald, the Harz and the Frankenwald, the ancient floor is composed mainly of Devonian beds. Other Palaeozoic systems are, however, included in the folds. The Cambrian, for example, is exposed at Leimitz near Hof in the Frankenwald, and the important coal-field of the Saar lies on the southern side of the Hunsruck, while Ordovician and Silurian beds have been found in several localities. Along the northern border of the folded belt lies the coal basin of the Ruhr in Westphalia, which is the continuation of the Belgian coal-field, and bears much the same relation to the Rhenish Devonian area that the coal basin of Liege bears to the Ardennes. Carboniferous and Devonian beds are also found south-east of the Bohemian _massif_, where lies the extensive coal-field of Silesia. The Permian, as in England, is not involved in the folds which have affected the older beds, and in general lies unconformably upon them. It occurs chiefly around the masses of ancient rock, and one of the largest areas is that of the Saar.

Between the old rocks of the Rhine on the west and the ancient _massif_ of Bohemia on the east a vast area of Triassic beds extends from Hanover to Basel and from Metz to Bayreuth. Over the greater part of this region the Triassic beds are free from folding and are nearly horizontal, but faulting is by no means absent, especially along the margins of the Bohemian and Rhenish hills. The Triassic beds must indeed have covered a large part of these old rock masses, but they have been preserved only where they were faulted down to a lower level. Along the southern margin of the Triassic area there is a long band of Jurassic beds dipping towards the Danube; and at its eastern extremity this band is continuous with a synclinal of Jurassic beds, running parallel to the western border of the Bohemian _massif_, but separated from it by a narrow strip of Triassic beds. Towards the north, in Hanover and Westphalia, the Triassic beds are followed by Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits, the latter being here the more important. As in the south of England, the lower beds of the Cretaceous are of estuarine origin and the Upper Cretaceous overlaps the Lower, lying in the valley of the Ruhr directly upon the Palaeozoic rocks. In Saxony also the upper Cretaceous beds rest directly upon the Palaeozoic or Archaean rocks. Still more to the east, in the province of Silesia, both Jurassic and Cretaceous beds are again met with, but they are to a large extent concealed by the recent accumulations of the great plain. The Eocene system is unknown in Germany except in the foothills of the Alps; but the Oligocene and Miocene are widely spread, especially in the great plain and in the depression of the Danube. The Oligocene is generally marine. Marine Miocene occurs in N.W. Germany and the Miocene of the Danube valley is also in part marine, but in central Germany it is of fluviatile or lacustrine origin. The lignites of Hesse, Cassel, &c., are interstratified with basaltic lava-flows which form the greater part of the Vogelsberg and other hills. The trachytes of the Siebengebirge are probably of slightly earlier date. The precise age of the volcanoes of the Eifel, many of which are in a very perfect state of preservation, is not clear, but they are certainly Tertiary or Post-tertiary. Leucite and nepheline lavas are here abundant. In the Siebengebirge the little crater of Roderberg, with its lavas and scoriae of leucite-basalt, is posterior to some of the Pleistocene river deposits.

A glance at a geological map of Germany will show that the greater part of Prussia and of German Poland is covered by Quaternary deposits. These are in part of glacial origin, and contain Scandinavian boulders; but fluviatile and aeolian deposits also occur. Quaternary beds also cover the floor of the broad depression through which the Rhine meanders from Basel to Mainz, and occupy a large part of the plain of the Danube. The depression of the Rhine is a trough lying between two faults or system of faults. The very much broader depression of the Danube is associated with the formation of the Alps, and was flooded by the sea during a part of the Miocene period. (P. La.)

[Illustration: Goelogic Map.]

_Climate._--The climate of Germany is to be regarded as intermediate between the oceanic and continental climates of western and eastern Europe respectively. It has nothing in common with the Mediterranean climate of southern Europe, Germany being separated from that region by the lofty barrier of the Alps. Although there are very considerable differences in the range of temperature and the amount of rainfall throughout Germany, these are not so great as they would be were it not that the elevated plateaus and mountain chains are in the south, while the north is occupied by low-lying plains. In the west no chain of hills intercepts the warmer and moister winds which blow from the Atlantic, and these accordingly influence at times even the eastern regions of Germany. The mean annual temperature of south-western Germany, or the Rhine and Danube basins, is about 52 deg. to 54 deg. F., that of central Germany 48 deg. to 50 deg., and that of the northern plain 46 deg. to 48 deg. In Pomerania and West Prussia it is only 44 deg. to 45 deg., and in East Prussia 42 deg. to 44 deg. The mean January temperature varies between 22 deg. and 34 deg. (in Masuren and Cologne respectively); the mean July temperature, between 61 deg. in north Schleswig and 68 deg. at Cologne. The extremes of cold and heat are, as recorded in the ten years 1895-1905, 7 deg. in Konigsberg and 93 deg. in Heidelberg (the hottest place in Germany). The difference in the mean annual temperature between the south-west and north-west of Germany amounts to about 3 deg. The contrasts of heat and cold are furnished by the valley of the Rhine above Mainz, which has the greatest mean heat, the mildest winter and the highest summer temperature, and the lake plateau of East Prussia, where Arys on the Spirdingsee has a like winter temperature to the Brocken at 3200 ft. The Baltic has the lowest spring temperature, and the autumn there is also not characterized by an appreciably higher degree of warmth. In central Germany the high plateaus of the Erz and Fichtelgebirge are the coldest regions. In south Germany the upper Bavarian plain experiences an inclement winter and a cold summer. In Alsace-Lorraine the Vosges and the plateau of Lorraine are also remarkable for low temperatures. The warmest districts of the German empire are the northern parts of the Rhine plain, from Karlsruhe downwards, especially the Rheintal; these are scarcely 300 ft. above the sea-level, and are protected by mountainous tracts of land. The same holds true of the valleys of the Neckar, Main and Mosel. Hence the vine is everywhere cultivated in these districts. The mean summer temperature there is 66 deg. and upwards, while the average temperature of January does not descend to the freezing point (32 deg.). The climate of north-western Germany (west of the Elbe) shows a predominating oceanic character, the summers not being too hot (mean summer temperature 60 deg. to 62 deg.), and snow in winter remaining but a short time on the ground. West of the Weser the average temperature of January exceeds 32 deg.; to the east it sinks to 30 deg., and therefore the Elbe is generally covered with ice for some months of the year, as are also its tributaries. The farther one proceeds to the east the greater are the contrasts of summer and winter. While the average summer warmth of Germany is 60 deg. to 62 deg., the January temperature falls as low as 26 deg. to 28 deg. in West Prussia, Posen and Silesia, and 22 deg. to 26 deg. in East Prussia and upper Silesia. The navigation of the rivers is regularly interrupted by frost. Similarly the upper basin of the Danube, or the Bavarian plain, has a rather inclement climate in winter, the average for January being 25 deg. to 26 deg.

As regards rainfall, Germany belongs to those regions where precipitation takes place at all seasons, but chiefly in the form of summer rains. In respect to the quantity of rain the empire takes a middle position between the humidity of north-western Europe and the aridity of the east. There are considerable differences between

## particular places. The rainfall is greatest in the Bavarian tableland

and the hilly regions of western Germany. For the Eifel, Sauerland, Harz, Thuringian Forest, Rhon, Vogelsberg, Spessart, the Black Forest, the Vosges, &c., the annual average may be stated at 34 in. or more, while in the lower terraces of south-western Germany, as in the Erzgebirge and the Sudetic range, it is estimated at 30 to 32 in. only. The same average obtains also on the humid north-west coast of Germany as far as Bremen and Hamburg. In the remaining parts of western Germany, on the shores of farther Pomerania, and in East Prussia, it amounts to upwards of 24 in. In western Germany there is a district famous for the scarcity of rain and for producing the best kind of wine: in the valley of the Rhine below Strassburg, in the Palatinate, and also in the valley of the Main, no more than from 16 to 20 in. fall. Mecklenburg, Brandenburg and Lusatia, Saxony and the plateau of Thuringia, West Prussia, Posen and lower Silesia are also to be classed among the more arid regions of Germany, the annual rainfall being 16 to 20 in. Thunderstorms are most frequent in July, and vary between fifteen and twenty-five in the central districts, descending in the eastern provinces of Prussia to ten annually.

_Flora._--The flora of Germany comprises 3413 species of phanerogamic and 4306 cryptogamic plants. The country forms a section of the central European zone, and its flora is largely under the influence of the Baltic and Alpine elements, which to a great degree here coalesce. All plants peculiar to the temperate zone abound. Wheat, rye, barley and oats are cultivated everywhere, but spelt only in the south and buckwheat in the north and north-west. Maize only ripens in the south. Potatoes grow in every part of the country, those of the sandy plains in the north being of excellent quality. All the commoner sorts of fruit--apples, pears, cherries, &c.--grow everywhere, but the more delicate kinds, such as figs, apricots and peaches, are confined to the warmer districts. The vine flourishes as far as the 51 deg. N., but only yields good wine in the districts of the Rhine and Danube. Flax is grown in the north, and hemp more particularly in the central districts. Rape can be produced everywhere when the soil permits. Tobacco is cultivated on the upper Rhine and in the valley of the Oder. The northern plain, especially in the province of Saxony, produces beet (for sugar), and hops are largely grown in Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Alsace, Baden and the Prussian province of Posen.

Forests.

Speaking generally, northern Germany is not nearly so well wooded as central and southern Germany, where indeed most of the lower mountains are covered with timber, as is indicated by the frequent use of the termination _wald_ affixed to the names of the mountain ranges (as Schwarzwald, Thuringerwald, &c.). The "Seenplatten" are less wooded than the hill country, but the eastern portion of the northern lowlands is well provided with timber. A narrow strip along the shores of the Baltic is covered with oaks and beeches; farther inland, and especially east of the Elbe, coniferous trees are the most prevalent,

## particularly the Scotch fir; birches are also abundant. The mountain

forests consist chiefly of firs, pines and larches, but contain also silver firs, beeches and oaks. Chestnuts and walnuts appear on the terraces of the Rhine valley and in Swabia and Franconia. The whole north-west of Germany is destitute of wood, but to compensate for this the people have ample supplies of fuel in the extensive stretches of turf.

_Fauna._--The number of wild animals in Germany is not very great. Foxes, martens, weasels, badgers and otters are to be found everywhere; bears are found in the Alps, wolves are rare, but they find their way sometimes from French territory to the western provinces, or from Poland to Prussia and Posen. Among the rodents the hamster and the field-mouse are a scourge to agriculture. Of game there are the roe, stag, boar and hare; the fallow deer and the wild rabbit are less common. The elk is to be found in the forests of East Prussia. The feathered tribes are everywhere abundant in the fields, woods and marshes. Wild geese and ducks, grouse, partridges, snipe, woodcock, quails, widgeons and teal are plentiful all over the country, and in recent years preserves have been largely stocked with pheasants. The length of time that birds of passage remain in Germany differs considerably with the different species. The stork is seen for about 170 days, the house-swallow 160, the snow-goose 260, the snipe 220. In northern Germany these birds arrive from twenty to thirty days later than in the south.

The waters of Germany abound with fish; but the genera and species are few. The carp and salmon tribes are the most abundant; after them rank the pike, the eel, the shad, the roach, the perch and the lamprey. The Oder and some of the tributaries of the Elbe abound in crayfish, and in the stagnant lakes of East Prussia leeches are bred. In addition to frogs, Germany has few varieties of Amphibia. Of serpents there are only two poisonous kinds, the common viper and the adder (_Kreuzotter_).

_Population._--Until comparatively recent times no estimate of the population of Germany was precise enough to be of any value. At the beginning of the 19th century the country was divided into some hundred states, but there was no central agency for instituting an exact census on a uniform plan. The formation of the German Confederation in 1815 effected but little change in this respect, and it was left to the different states to arrange in what manner the census should be taken. On the foundation, however, of the German customs union, or _Zollverein_, between certain German states, the necessity for accurate statistics became apparent and care was taken to compile trustworthy tables. Researches show the population of the German empire, as at present constituted, to have been: (1816) 24,833,396; (1855) 36,113,644; and (1871) 41,058,792. The following table shows the population and area of each of the states included in the empire for the years 1871, 1875, 1900 and 1905:--

_Area and Population of the German States._