8 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



glaciers or perennial snow, and it includes among its two hundred and twenty-nine 

 glaciers that of Gepaatsch, 7 miles in length, and the most considerable within 

 Austrian territory. Houses permanently inhabited are met with in the valley of the 

 Oetz up to a height of nearly 7,000 feet. But though the central portion of this 

 mountain group may be likened to Greenland, the spurs which descend towards the 

 Inn and Adige are full of gentle grace, and the valleys which they enclose are most 

 delightful. Picturesque villages and villas occupy every coin of vantage above 

 Innsbruck in the north, whilst the upper valley of the Adige, or Etsch, known as 



Fig. 3. — The Oetzthal. 

 Scale 1 : 35,000. 



10 Miles. 



Vintschgau, with the town of Meran and the old castle of Tyrol, is looked upon as 

 the paradise of the Austrian Alps. 



To the east of the Brenner the Alps rise once more, and form the range of the 

 Hohe Tauern,* which extends east for a distance of over 90 miles, as far as the 

 Arlscharte (7,230 feet). The orography of that range has been thoroughly 

 investigated by Herr Sonklar. He has determined the average height of all the 

 summits rising upon its crest at 9,350 feet, and the average height of the entire 

 group at 6,270 feet. The great summits of this range, the very names of which 

 were not known a couple of hundred years ago, are now annually visited by shoals 



* According to Ficker, Tauern means " towers." All the passes leading over that range are known as 

 Tauern, and that word has been rendered by "notches." The Romans knew the inhabitants of the 

 country as Taurians. 



