14 



AUSTRIA-HUNGAEY. 



centuries afterwards the summit of the Dobracz precipitated itself towards the 

 town of Villach, involving ten villages and two castles in ruin. A chapel, the 

 highest building in Austria (6,690 feet), now marks the spot where the mountain 

 gave way. 



The large lakes which formerly occupied the depressions between the moun- 

 tain ranges have either been drained or filled up by alluvium washed down from 

 the hills. Excepting the frontier Lakes of Constanz and Garda, no lake in 

 the German Alps has an area of over 15 square miles. The number of small 

 lakes, however, is very great. Some of them are isolated, as the Achensee, the 

 Zellersee, or the Caldenazzo, which gives birth to the Brenta ; others form groups, 

 as in the Salzkammergut and Carinthia. 



The lake district of the Salzkammergut, though its area is only 637 square 

 miles, includes no less than thirty-five small lakes, all of them within the basin of 



Fig. 6. — The Dobracz. 

 Scale 1 : 139,000. 





f^.^K <JpX%^f::,:i:^,^r^t 



7Â^ *- ^' 



20 Miles. 



the Traun, a tributary of the Danube. Most of them occupy calcareous mountain 

 gorges. The cavities which they fill have apparently been scooped out by glacial 

 action. The greater part of them, being fed by clear mountain torrents, do not 

 sensibly diminish in size ; but others — as, for instance, that of Hallstatt, into which 

 the mud-laden Traun discharges itself — shrink rapidly. Between 1781 and 1850 

 the delta at the mouth of the river has grown 247 feet, although at a short distance 

 beyond the depth exceeds 300 feet. The depth of these lakes, like that of most 

 mountain lakes, is considerable, that of the Lake Teplitz being equal to thrice its 

 width ; but their bottom, as a rule, is perfectly level. Thousands of visitors are 

 annually attracted to these clear mountain lakes and the verdant slopes which sur- 

 round them. The Lakes of Carinthia, occupying wide valleys bounded by gently 

 sloping hills, are for the most part shallow and devoid of picturesque beauty. The 



