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 60 PRUSSIA by inconsiderable hills; the S. W. portion is intersected by projecting spurs of the Hartz mountains (highest elevation the Brocken or Blocksberg, 3,737 ft.), and the Thuringian for- est. Westphalia, the Rhine province, and Hesse- Nassau contain the N. W. group of the moun- tain system of Germany, each of its numerous ridges having its own distinctive name. The more important are : on the right bank of the Rhine, the Taunus, the Weser hills, including the picturesque gap known as the Porta West- phalica, the Teutoburg forest (the battle ground of the Germans and Romans), the Roth- haar hills, the Sauerland hills (2,800 ft.), the Siebengebirge, the Westerwald, the Spessart, the Rh6n, and offshoots from the Vogelsberg ; on the left bank of the Rhine, the Hunsruck, Hohe Venn, and Eifel (2,500 ft.). The Ho- henzollern territory is intersected by the Rauhe Alp. Prussia contains a large number of lakes, especially in the level N. E. section, but none of them are of much importance. (For the principal lakes see GERMANY, vol. vii., p. 746.) There are large swamps on the lower course of the Havel, Oder, Warthe, and Netzo rivers, which many attempts have been made to drain. All the river systems of Prussia be- long to the basins of the Baltic and North seas. The principal rivers belonging to the basin of the Baltic are the Momol, Vistula (with its tributaries the Drewenz and Braho), and Oder (with its tributaries the Bartsch, Bober, Neisse, and Warthe). Independent of these are a number of coast rivers, viz., the Dange, Pregel, Passarge, Elbing, Leba, Lupow, Stolpe, Wipper, Persante, Roga, Ihna, Peene, Ucker, Recknitz, and Trave, nearly all of them navigable for some distance. Belonging to the North sea basin are the Eider, the Elbe (with its tributaries the Mulde, Saale, and Havel), the Weser, formed by the Werra and Fulda (with its tributary the Aller), the Ems (with the Vechto), and the Rhine. The Rhine flows through Prussian territory about 200 m., en- tering it at Mentz, forming about 29 m. of the boundary of Hesse-Darmstadt, receivingon the right bank the Main, Lahn, Wied, Sieg, Wipper, Ruhr, and Lippe, and on the left bank the Nahe, Moselle, and Ahr, and passing into Holland a little bolow Emmerich. Prussia has a large number of artificial watercourses, the Vistula and Oder being connected by the Bromberg canal, the Oder and Spree (an affluent of the Havel) by the Mullroso canal, the Havel and Elbe by the Plan canal, the Elbe and Trave by the Stecknitz canal, and the Eider and the Bal- tic by the Eider canal. Other canals connect small adjacent river systems in the western provinces. The climate is wholesome and tem- perate. The mean temperature at Kcmigsberg is 4:* F., at Berlin 48, at Aix-la-Chapelle 49, and at Cologne and Treves 50. The soil, though in some mountainous districts of the western section extremely desolate and sterile, and in a large division of the middle provinces a poor loamy sand, is on the whole fertile, and preeminently so in the bottoms of the Elbe, Saale, Unstrut (an affluent of the Saale), Oder, Warthe, Netze, and some otlu-r rivers. Even where it is naturally poor, a woll developed system of agriculture, assiduously fostered by the government, renders it highly productive. The population of Prussia, ac- cording to the census of 1871 (corrected tables of 1873), was as follows: Prussia.... 8,187,546 Brandenburg ^BSlH Pomeranla 1.4HUM8 Posen... I,to8,t>48 Silesia 8,77,li;7 Saxony 2,1 (. 1 71 Schleswig-Holsteln 15,s78 Hanover (including the Jade district) 1,9(3,618 Westphalia 1,775.175 Hesse-Nassau 1,4(M).870 Rhine Province 8,57'.V7 Hohenzollern 65,558 Soldiers and sailors not included above 87,4U9 Total 24,648,951 Duchy or Lauenburg 49,546 Grand total 24,698,497 The excess of females over males was 857,542. Of the entire population about 21,800,000 speak German, 146,800 are Lithuanians, 2,420,000 (in Prussia, Posen, and Pomerania) Poles, 50,- 000 (in Silesia) Czechs, 83,000 (in Silesia and Brandenburg) Wends, 10,400 (in the Rhine province) Walloons, and 145,000 (in Schleswig- Ilolstein) Danes. Prussia has one city (Ber- lin) of more than 900,000 inhabitants (in Au- gust, 1878, 909,580), 5 of from 100,000 to 210,- 000 (Breslau, Cologne, Magdeburg, KSnigsberg, and Hanover), 12 of from 50,000 to 100,000 (Frankfort-on-the-Main, Dantzic, Stettin, Bar- men, Elberfeld, Aix-la-Chapelle, Altona, Dus- soldorf, Crefeld, Posen, Halle, and Essen), and 6 of from 40,000 to 50,000 (Cassel, Dortmund. Potsdam, Erfurt, Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and Gorlitz). The number of births in 1872 was 1,023,005, of which 73,527 were illegitimate and 40,505 still-born ; of deaths, 765,360 ; of marriages, 255,421. The number of emigrants from 1844 to 1872 was 706,562 ; of immigrants, 110,973. Of the total area of the kingdom, 50'1 per cent, consists of tilled fields, gardens, vineyards, and orchards, 18-3 meadowg, 23'1 woodland, and 8'5 unproductive land. All kinds of grain are produced in abundance in Prussia proper, Posen, Silesia, and Saxony, all of which export breadstuff's to the other prov- inces or to foreign countries. An average grain crop is estimated at 53,000,000 bushels of wheat, 194,000,000 of rye, 34,000,000 of barley, and 154,000,000 of oats. Of potatoes about 495,000,000 bushels are raised. Spelt, peas, rape seed, dyestuffs, herbs, flax, hemp, chiccory, hops, and" beets (chiefly used for the sugar manufacture) are cultivated in large quantities in all parts of the kingdom. Tobacco is largely raised in western and central Prus- sia, but has of late considerably decreased in amount; the produce of raw tobacco in 1869 was about 17,000,000 Ibs. Of the vineyards full four fifths are on the Rhine and its tribu-