267 



The northern part of the country, skirting the Baltic Sea and the Ger- 

 man Ocean, is low and level, constituting the depressed westward pro- 

 jection of the great Eusso-Polish plateau, which extends eastward to the 

 Ural Elver. In some places the depressed shore-line renders necessary 

 the erection of dikes to keep out the German Ocean. West of the Elbe 

 the coast is frequently lined with fertile meadows, back of which is a 

 considerable waste of swamps and moors, interspersed with sand-hills. 

 From Denmark to the Ural Eiver the plateau is broken by the Baltic- 

 Uralian ridges, which reach their maximum elevation of about 900 feet 

 in the Karthaus plateau near Dantzig. 



The mountain ranges appear to converge near Minden in West- 

 phalia, spreading with a fan-like expansion southward. The ])riucipal 

 systems are : 1. The W^estphalian Ehine Slate Mountains, of Devonian 

 origin, running southwest across the Ehine. 2. The Ehine system, run- 

 ning south-southwest and stretching from the celebrated Black Forest to 

 Sollinger Forest on the Weser. 3. The southern system, embracing 

 several ranges starting from near Passau and the sources of the Oder, 

 and running northwest to the valley of the Ems. On the south flanks of 

 this system are found the Bohemian, Bohmerwald, Thuringian and 

 Teutoburger forests. The principal rocks are granitCj gneiss, mica, and 

 hornblendic slate. 4. Portions of the Alpine system, the Algiiuer, the 

 Bavarian, and the Salzburg ranges cross the southern frontier. 



Germany participates in ten large streams, of which three are impor- 

 tant rivers, besides one hundred and fifty smaller streams, of which 

 sixty are navigable. A large number of brooks aft'ord immense water- 

 power, driving 39,000 flour-mills. The Pregel, Vistula, Weichsel, and 

 Oder, empty into the Baltic ; the Eider, Elbe, Weser, Ems, and Ehine, 

 into the German Ocean ; the Danube into the Black Sea. Considerable 

 lakes are formed at the foot of the Alps, in Brandenburg and in the 

 neighborhood of Posen. 



Climate. — According to Dove, the Atlantic Gulf Stream exercises a 

 considerable influence upon the German climate. The cold arctic cur- 

 rents not having direct access to the Baltic, this ameliorating influence 

 is not greatly counteracted. The principal winds are the equatorial, 

 which raises the winter temperature, bringing rain and snow, and the 

 polar. The general temperature is higher than is usual in the same lat- 

 itudes. The average temperature of leading points is shown in the 

 following table. 



Average temperatures, centigrade. 



The above temperatures may be transmuted into degrees Fahrenheit 

 by multiplying them by 1.8 and adding the product to 32°, the freezing 

 point. In case of minus temperatures the product should be subtracted 

 from 32. 



