102 



DISCOVERY 



The spell copcludes like many of its class upon a 

 note of urgency, and ends with what is a usual formula 

 to compel the powers invoked to get at once to work. 

 The rest of the story is lost. We do not know whether 

 ■\^ictoricus and his horses were smitten in the night 

 with mysterious illness, or whether the Blues won a 

 victory upon the following day. The event, of such 

 desperate moment to the writer of this spell, assumes 

 across the ages its relative unimportance in the scheme 

 of things. It is this vision of the futility of the 

 immediate motives of human passion which lend these 

 documents their pathos. In the almost untranslatable 

 words of the poet Vergil, the greatest of those who 

 have been accounted masters of magical lore, 



" Sunt lacrirnre rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt,"i 



The sketch of the tablet is taken from Corpus 

 Inscripiioniim Latinarum, viii, 135 ii. A text and 

 notes will be found in Wiinsch, Antike Fluchtafeln, 

 and ed. (Bonn, 1912), pp. 9-13. Inscriptiones Grceca, 

 iii, 3, edited by the same scholar, contains a collection 

 of all similar tablets which had been found in Attica 

 and elsewhere before 1897. 



The Economic Position 

 in Germany 



By J. Ellis Barker 



For many years the Germans have asserted that 

 Germany was naturally one of the poorest countries 

 in the world, that the extraordinary development of the 

 national prosperity was due partly to the excellence of 

 the German government, and partly to the industry 

 and ability of the inhabitants. The statement that 

 Germany is a poor country, though it was readily 

 accepted abroad, is not in accordance with the facts. 

 Germany, far from being naturally a poor country, is 

 undoubtedly by far the wealthiest land in Europe. 

 She enjoys great advantages for the pursuit of agri- 

 culture, commerce, and industry, although she has 

 neither the genial climate of France and Italy nor the 

 numerous harbours of England. 



All North Germany is a level plain. One can travel 

 from Cologne to the eastern frontier of Germany with- 

 out passing through a single tunnel or important cutting. 

 Level ground is ideal for the pursuit of agriculture. 

 Moreover, Germany's soil is very fruitful, the climate 

 is moderate, and the country does not suffer from the 

 droughts which so frequently prove injurious in France 

 and Italy. By the provision of nature, Germany pro- 



1 Vergil, jEneid, i, 462 : " Tears are to human sorrows 

 given, hearts feel for mankind." (Bowen.) 



duces an abundance of potash and other important 

 chemical fertilisers. 



The development of both agriculture and industry 

 depends largely on an efficient and cheap transport 

 system. Germany possesses the finest system of inland 

 waterways in the world. The country is opened up by 

 a number of deep and gently flowing rivers, which are 

 navigable for very large boats for hundreds of miles, 

 and they can easily be connected at comparatively 

 small cost by lateral canals. The Rhine is navigable 

 up to the Swiss frontier, and the Elbe up to the Danu- 

 bian lands. As all North Germany is a level plcdn, 

 railway construction was exceedingly cheap. The 

 great success of the State railways was due not so 

 much to the ability of the officials who managed them 

 as to the fact that practically the whole of the Prussian 

 State railways were built on a level plain, while the 

 railways of France, England, Italy, and other countries 

 had to overcome great natural difficulties. 



Industrial prosperity depends nowadays on the 

 possession of an abundance of cheap power with which 

 machinery may be set in motion, and on an abundance 

 of minerals required in industry. Previous to the war 

 Germany possessed far more coal than all the other 

 countries of Europe combined. Germany's coal is of 

 excellent quality. It can be produced cheaply owing 

 to the nature of the seams, and it is exceedingly rich in 

 all those precious by-products which are more valuable 

 than the fuel itself. In addition to an extraordinary 

 wealth in coal, Germany possessed a superabundance of 

 iron ore, zinc ore, and various salts, among which potash 

 has attracted particular attention. About half of the 

 country stands on a bed of salt. At some points bore 

 holes have been sunk through 6,000 feet of solid salt 

 without coming to the end of the deposit. With the con- 

 tinued progress of chemical science these salt deposits 

 will prove of immeasurable value. Germany has vast 

 stores of brown coal, or lignite, and of peat which can 

 be made and are being made to yield cheap power, and 

 the upper reaches of the rivers can produce millions 

 of hydro-electrical horse-powers. ■ 



The development of commerce in a country depends \ 

 on its productive capacity and on its geographical 

 position. The German manufacturing industries and 

 the German coalfields can furnish vast quantities of 

 exportable goods. Moreover, commercial development 

 is greatly promoted by Germany's central position in 

 Europe and by her great rivers. Much of the land- 

 locked and ice-locked trade of Russia goes habitually 

 via the German harbours. Before the war a large part 

 of Austria's foreign trade was carried by way of the 

 Danube and of Hamburg, which was more important as 

 a harbour to the Dual Monarchy than Trieste ; and 

 a large portion of the trade of Switzerand, Northern 

 Italy, and Eastern France was carried by way of the 



