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BERLIN -BERMUDAS' ISLANDS. 



lury, are represented in Roman costume ami periwigs ; 

 the Leipsic-place ; the place of Belle-Alliance ; the 

 Bohemian church ; the. Trinity church ; the French 

 and the new church, with two famous steeples; the 

 royal porcelain manufactory ; the academy of Fre- 

 deric AVilliam, with the lit-nlschulr (which belongs to 

 the class of high schools, and contained, in the year 

 1816, 650 scholar-) ; the Collegien or council house, 

 where the legislative committee, the chief court of 

 justice, also the Kannnergericht, and council tor mi- 

 nors, hold their sessions, and the archives of the 

 .Brandenburg fii-t's are kept ; the bank ; the house of 

 the society tor foreign commerce; the theatre, which, 

 in 1817, was consumed by fire, and was afterwards 

 rebuilt under the direction of Schinkel ; several 

 hund-ome buildings belonging to private persons, &c. 



1 -ouisvnstadt, for the greater part, consists of fields 

 and gardens. Before the Cottbus gate, upon a rising 

 ground covered with wood, called Hasen/iaitle, was 

 the first spot devoted to the new gymnastic exercises 

 in (in-many, invented by doctor Jahn. On the top 

 of the mountain of the cross, formerly Teinpelhof 

 mountain, before the Halle gate, is a monument of 

 iron, erected, in 1820, in commemoration of the wars 

 against France. 



Berlin contains upwards of 100 public and 50 pri- 

 vate elementary schools : of burgher or intermediate 

 schools, 10 public, 60 private, and 13 special schools 

 (schools in which youth are educated for particular 

 employments) : 5 gymnasia or classical schools, 7 

 higher special schools or colleges, and the university : 

 also several academies and literary societies, as the 

 royal academy of science (see Academy) ; the acade- 

 my of fine arts, mechanical sciences, and architecture, 

 with the schools of art appertaining to this academy ; 

 the society for natural history and natural philoso- 

 phy ; the niedico-chirargical, the pharmaceutic, the 

 philomathic, the physico- medical societies ; the so- 

 ciety for cultivating the German language ; the as- 

 sociation of artists. There are also, in this city, a 

 museum of antiquities, established in 1820; the royal 

 medico-chirurgical academy for the military ; two 

 royal medico-chirurgical seminaries, intended to edu- 

 cate surgeons for the army ; the royal veterinary 

 school ; two seminaries for the education of town 

 and country schoolmasters ; the seminary for mis- 

 sionaries, destined to convert the heathens in the 

 western parts of Africa ; several institutions for the 

 deaf and dumb and the blind ; a free school for Jew- 

 ish children ; an academy for foresters (an institution 

 in which the knowledge relating to the cultivation of 

 woods and forests is acquired ; a singing academy ; 

 a military swimming-school ; a Bible society ; a so- 

 ciety for the advancement of Christianity among the 

 Jews ; an association for the cultivation of gardens ; 

 an institution for preparing artificial mineral waters, 

 c. There are many charitable institutions in B., 

 the poor, who cannot subsist without help, being 

 about 12,000. Among them, the female charitable 

 association, under 32 directresses, provided, Decem- 

 ber, 1816, for 1200 poor persons, dispersed in 180 

 families. The most benevolent institution is that 

 established, in 1794, by Kranz, counsellor of war, tor 

 relieving impoverished citizens, and which has since 

 numbered some of its former beneficiaries among its 

 members. B. has a considerable commerce and some 

 important manufactories ; a royal bank ; a royal so- 

 ciety for foreign commerce ; a wool -market ; upwards 

 of 300 machines for spinning wool and cotton, with 

 29,000 spindles, 4834 looms for weaving cloths, silk, 

 woolen, cotton and linen, carpets, &c. ; numerous ma- 

 nufactories of silk, woolen or cotton ribands, 326 lace- 

 makers, 44 manufactories for colouring and printing 

 stulfe, 66 dye-houses, 5 sugar refineries, 4 manufacto- 

 ries of ornamental tin-ware, porcelain and stone- ware 



factories, the royal bronze manufactories, important 

 manufactories of gold and silver ware, of fine cabinet 

 work of petinet, straw hats, artificial flowers and fea- 

 thers ; about 25 printing houses, 8 powder mills, &c. ; 

 also Mr Jacobi's valuable collection of works of art. 

 '1 'he pavement of B. is extremely bad; the illumination 

 of the streets imperfect. Though some parts of this 

 city are beautiful, yet, on the otner hand, its flat and 

 sandy environs are extremely unpleasant. The univ< r- 

 sity of B. was founded in 1809, when Prussia was 

 groaning beneath the heavy yoke, of the French. It 

 proceeded from the noble efforts of those men who, at 

 tliat time conducted the public concerns of the king- 

 dom, (Stein was one of the most distinguislied among 

 them), and were convinced that the only effectual pre- 

 paration for a future deliverance from the French was 

 a moral regeneration of the people ; at the same time 

 thinking all that diffuses knowledge and intellectual 

 light an excellent means of producing this moral 

 change an idea which was realized by the result. 

 Although the university of B. is so young an establish- 

 ment, yet it ranks among the first in the world, and is, 

 in one branch of science in philology the very first. 

 By means of this and many other scientific institu- 

 tions, a literary spirit has been awakened among the 

 citizens, by which they are very advantageously dis- 

 tinguished from the inhabitants of other cities ; but, 

 on the other hand, the society of B. has neither the 

 refined manners of a royal residence, nor the easy 

 manners of many other cities. To the university 

 belong the botanical garden without the city, near 

 Schonberg, the anatomical theatre, the anatomical 

 and zoological museum, the theological and philolo- 

 gical seminary, the cabinet of minerals, the clinical 

 institution, the lying-in hospital, &c. In the year 

 1826, there were 1640 students in the university of 

 B., among whom were 400 foreigners. More than 

 90 professors are employed in the university. In the 

 year 1828, the annual meeting of German naturalists, 

 for the promotion of natural science, was held at B., 

 under the direction of Alexander von Humboldt. It 

 furnished a splendid array of talent, and many dis- 

 courses of great interest were delivered. 



BERMUDAS' ISLANDS, or SOMERS' ISLANDS ; a cluster 

 of small islands in the Atlantic ocean. They are in 

 number about 400, but for the most part so small and 

 so barren, that they have neither inhabitants nor 

 name. They were first discovered by Juan Bermu- 

 das, a Spaniard, in 1522; in 1609, Sir George So- 

 mers, an Englishman, was wrecked here, and, after 

 his shipwreck, formed the first settlement. The 

 most considerable of these islands are St George, St 

 David, Cooper, Ireland, Somerset, Long island, Bird 

 island, and Nonesuch. The first contains a town 

 (St George's Town) ; the two following, some vil- 

 lages ; the others, only farms dispersed. 



The air is so healthy, that sick people from the 

 continent of America, frequently go thither for the 

 recovery of their health. The winter is hardly per- 

 ceptible ; it may be said to be perpetually spring , 

 the trees never lose their verdure, and the leaves 

 only fall when new ones begin to appear. Birds sing 

 and breed without intermission. But these advanta- 

 ges are counterbalanced by frightful storms, accom- 

 panied by formidable thunder, which are announced 

 by a circle round the moon. Some fertile plains 

 are seen, but, in general, the country is mountain- 

 ous. The soil is of divers colours, brown, white, 

 and red, of which the first is the best ; although 

 light and stony, it is, in general, rich and fertile. 

 The water is, in general, salt; there is but little 

 fresh, except rain water, preserved in cisterns. The 

 inhabitants gather two harvests of Indian corn in a 

 year, one in July, and the other in December : this 

 forms their principal food. They likewise cultivate 



