Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 27 - CHI-ELD.pdf/799

 ELBE 743 just below Hamburg is obstructed by a bar, and still lower dug, 5 to 6| feet deep and of various widths, for the purpose of down is choked with sandbanks, so that navigation is con- connecting the Elbe, through the Havel and the Spree, with the fined to a relatively narrow channel down the middle of system of the Oder. The most noteworthy of these connexions the stream. But Hamburg has been unremitting in her are the Elbe Canal (141 miles long), the Reek Canal (94 miles), efforts to maintain a sufficient fairway, and now vessels the Rudesdorfer Gewasser (llj miles), the Rheinsberger Canal (114 miles), and the Sacrow-Paretzer Canal (10 miles), besides drawing .8 feet are able to proceed right up to her wharves, which the Spree has been canalized for a distance of 28 jniles the depth of water on the bar having been increased from and the Elbe for a distance of 70 miles. Since 1896 great improveH feet in 1830 to 241 feet m 1899. The tide advances ments have been made in the Moldau and the Bohemian Elbe, as iar^ Geesthacht, a little more than 100 miles from the with the view of facilitating communication between Prague and middle of Bohemia generally on the one hand, and the middle sea The river is navigable as far as Melnik, that is the the and lower reaches of the Elbe on the other. In the year named confluence of the Moldau, a distance of 525 miles' of a special commission was appointed for the regulation of the which 67 are in Bohemia. Its total length is 725 miles of Moldau and Elbe between Prague and Aussig, at a cost estimated which 190 miles are in Bohemia, 77 miles in the kingdom at about £1,000,000, of which sum two-thirds were to be borne by ie Austrian empire and one-third by the kingdom of Bohemia, of Saxony, and 350 miles in Prussia, the remaining 108 he regulation is being effected by the construction of locks and miles being in Hamburg and other states of Germany. movable dams the latter so designed that in times of flood or The area of the drainage basin is estimated at 56 000 frost they can be dropped flat on the bottom of the river. When square miles. ’ ^depth j-i,eSe , s aie finished, the twoof rivers willandhave minimum over the distances indicated 6| feet, willa be able to Since 1842, but more especially since 1871, improvements have accommodate barges of 700 to 800 tons when fully laden. In been made m the navigability of the Elbe by all the states which th Austmn irn with ® proposalsGovernment laid before the Reichsrath a canal border upon its banks. As a result of these labours, there is now Lhi (1) for constructing a canal from the Danube m the Bohemian portion of the river a minimum depth of 2 feet (probably near Linz) to the Moldau near Budweis, a distance of 8 inches, whilst froin the Bohemian frontier down to Magdeburg 80 miles, and for regulating the Moldau from Budweis down to the minimum depth is 3 feet, and from Magdeburg to Hamburg8 urague ; (2) for constructing a canal from the Danube to the 3 feet 10 inches. In 1896 and 1897 Prussia and Hamburg signed utter; (3) for constructing a canal between this last, starting at covenants whereby two channels are to be kept open to a denth nf Prerau and ending at Pardubitz on the upper Elbe, and for the 9|feet, a width of 656 feet, and a length of 55^ tfween canalization of the Elbe from Pardubitz to Melnik; and (4) for Bunthaus and Ortkathen, just above the bifurcation of the Norder making a navigable canal to unite the Danube-Oder section with Elbe and the Suder Elbe. In 1869 the maximum burden of the the basin of the Vistula and with the navigable portion of the vessels winch were able to ply on the upper Elbe was 250 tons • umester. t he total cost was estimated at £31,000,000, and the but m 1899 it was increased to 800 tons. The large towns time, the works would take at twenty years. In 1900 Liibeck was through which the river flows have vied with one another in put into direct communication with the Elbe at Lauenburg bv the building harbours, providing shipping accommodation, and fur- opening of the Elbe-Trave Canal, 42 miles in length, and connishing other facilities for the efficient navigation of the Elbe. structed at a cost of £1,177,700, of which the state of Liibeck In this respect the greatest efforts have naturally been made bv contributed £802, / 00, and the kingdom of Prussia £375,000. The Hamburg (q.v.); but Magdeburg, Dresden, Meissen, Riesa, canal has been made 72 feet wide at the bottom, 105 to 126 feet letschen, Aussig, and other places have all done their relative wide at the top has a minimum depth of 8£ feet, and is equipped shares, Magdeburg, for instance, providing a commercial harbour with seven locks, each 262J feet long and 391 feet wide. It is and a winter harbour. In spite, however, of all that has been thus able to accommodate vessels up to 800 tons burden : and the done, the Elbe remains subject to serious inundations at periodic passage from Liibeck to Lauenburg occupies 18 to 21 hours In intervals.. Some of the worst floods which have been occasioned 11 ^ /ear °f lts,beinS 0Pen (June 1900 1901)project a totalhas of tons passed through the canal.1 toA June gigantic r er h ave occurred nLt iJ and, 1890. in the years 1774, 1799, 1815, 1830, 115,000 1845, ,o 1862, S 1 rw ard r tm?? and f° the ' Elbe, f° providing communication between the° fthme and so water with the Oder, through the The growth of the traffic up and down the Elbe during the last +v. quarter of the 19th century will be illustrated by the subjoined heart of Germany Some particulars of this scheme, which is table, which shows the number of vessels, with their tonnage known as the Midland Canal, are given in the article Canals which passed the river stations of Schandau (near the Saxon- Another canal has been projected for connecting Kiel with the Bohemian frontier), the Plauer Schleuse (some 20 miles below Elbe by means of a canal trained through the Plbn Lakes. Magdeburg), and Hamburg-Entenwarder—(i.) the annual average c Ti£v.-]FbT^- Cr°ssed hy nunierous bridges, as at Koniggriitz, for the years 1872-75, and (ii.) for the year 1899. ° Pardubitz, Kolm, Leitmentz, Tetschen, Schandau, Pirna, Dresden Mmssen Torgjiu, Wittenberg, Rosslau, Barby, Magdeburg, Rathenow, Wittenberge, Domitz, Lauenburg, and Hamburg and HarUp-stream. Down-stream. burg. At all these places there are railway bridges, and nearly all but more especially those in Bohemia, Saxony, and the middle * Vessels. Tons. Vessels. Tons. course of the river—these last on the main lines between Berlin and /1872-75 4,336 the west and south-west of the empire—possess a greater or less 30,600 3,152 429,200 Schandau 1899 strategic value. At Leitmeritz there is an iron trellis bridge 600 8,489 3,045,600 7,795 4.509.500 Plauer yards long. Dresden has four bridges, three built in the 19th /I872-75 2,313 108,600 2,099 148,000 Schleuse

5,149 1,223,100 5,269 1.739.500 century, one of them serving also as a railway bridge, and the Hamburg- /1872-75 5,053 fourth early m the 18th century; there is a fifth bridge at 438,700 4,725 256,400 Entenwarder (1899 Loschwitz, about three miles above the city. Meissen has a new 24,480 6,607,000 26,706 6,174,600 railway bridge, m addition to an old road bridge. Magdeburg is one In addition to this, timber rafts with an annual average of of the most important railway centres in Northern Germany ; and 154,500 tons of timber passed downwards through Schandau, and the Elbe, besides being bridged—it divides there into three arms— 34,400 tons through Hamburg, in the years 1872-75 ; the corre- several times for vehicular traffic, is also spanned by two fine railsponding figures for 1899 being 284,100 tons through Schandau way bridges. At both Hamburg and Harburg, again, there are and 23,600 tons through Hamburg. The value of the goods for- handsome new railway bridges, the one (1868-73 and 1894) crossing warded from Hamburg to the interior of Germany up the Elbe in the Northern Elbe, and the other (1900) the Southern Elbe: and the year 1899 was estimated at over 34J millions sterling, equivalent the former arm is also crossed by a fine triple-arched bridge & v(ISSSl; to about 20 per cent, of the entire exports from Hamburg. This for vehicular traffic. The river is well stocked with fish, both salt-water and freshvast amount of traffic is directed principally to Berlin, by means of the Havel-Spree system of canals, to the Thuringian states and water species being found in its waters, and several varieties of the Prussian province of Saxony, to the kingdom of Saxony and lesh-water fish m its tributaries. The kinds of greatest economic Bohemia, and to the various riverine states and provinces of the value are sturgeon, shad, salmon, lampreys, eels, pike, and whiting. In the days of the old German empire no fewer than thirty-five lower and middle Elbe. The passenger traffic, which is in the hands, of the Sachsisch-Bohmische Dampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft, different tolls were levied between Melnik and Hamburg, to say is limited to Bohemia and Saxony, steamers plying up and down nothing of the special dues and privileged exactions of various the stream from Dresden to Melnik, occasionally continuing the npanan owners and political authorities. After these had been journey up the Moldau to Prague, and down the river as far as de facto, though not de jure, in abeyance during the period of the Riesa, near the northern frontier of Saxony. The carrying trade .Napoleonic wars, a commission of the various Elbe states met and and the towing of barges are conducted by several large navigation drew up a scheme for their regulation, and the scheme, embodied companies. See Der Ban des Elbe - Trave Canals und seine Vorqeschichte In 1877-79, and again in 1888-95, some 100 miles of canal were Liibeck, 1900.