BOHEMIA, MORAVIA, AND AUSTRIAN SILESIA. 



127 



The Erzgebirge, or '* Ore Mountains," whicli bound Boliemia on the north-west, 

 contrast in several respects with the Bohemian Forest. Rising like a wall above 

 the vallevs of the Eger and Biela, in Bohemia, they slope down gently on the 

 Saxon side. Strategically they form, consequently, a part of Germany, and in 

 reality the whole of their slopes are peopled by Germans, who have brought under 

 cultivation all the available soil. The highest village, Gottesgabe, lies at an 

 elevation of 3,440 feet. The range is of more uniform contour than the Bohemian 

 Forest, and its summits are more rounded. Numerous roads cross it in all 

 directions. Only towards the extremities does it present really picturesque 

 features: in the west, where chaotically piled -up mountain summits join it to the 



Fig. 78. — The Pass of Taus (Doma^lice). . 

 Scale 1 : 425,000. 



IO°hO E of Paris iRol ovec I 



50 Eof G 



5 Miles. 



Fichtelgebirge, and in the east, where it terminates in the grotesquely shaped 

 sandstone rocks of " Saxon Switzerland," at the foot of which flows the Elbe.* 



To the west of the deep gorge scooped out by the Elbe on its passage from 

 Bohemia into Saxony rises a mountain system which is geologically a pendant 

 of the Erzgebirge. It begins with the volcanic range of Lusatia, continued in the 

 schistose ridge of the Jeschhen (Jested, 3,323 feet). A broad plain separates the 

 Jeschken from the triple granitic range of the Iser Mountains (3,687 feet), and the 

 crystalline and schistose masses of the Riesengebirge, or " Giant Mountains," whose 

 bold contours remind us of the Alps. More elevated than the Bohemian Forest — 

 the Schneekoppe rising to a height of 5,186 feet — this mountain mass impresses 



* Length of the Erzgebirge, 85 miles; average width, 23 miles; average height, 2,620 feet; culmi- 

 nating point (Keilberg), 4,182 feet. 



