RHENISH PRUSSIA. 



213 



Germany, but it is surpassed by the coal basin of tbe E,ubr, the veritable 

 Lancashire of Prussia, where town presses upon town, and the network of 

 railways is most bewildering. Elherfeld (80,589 inhabitants) and Barmen (86,502 

 inhabitants) were small villages a century ago, but now extend for 5 miles 

 along the valley of the Wupper. The interests of the inhabitants are almost 

 exclusively wrapped up in the manufacture of silks, cottons, and ribbons, in 

 print works and other industrial establishments. Barmen also exports pianofortes. 

 All the towns of that district present the same aspect, and look like so many 

 suburbs of Elberfeld scattered broadcast over the country. Ronsdorf (9,573 

 inhabitants), Lûttringhausen (9,471 inhabitants), Lenncp (7,753 inhabitants), and 

 Kronenbcrg (8,167 inhabitants) are the more important amongst them. Uilden 

 (6,787 inhabitants), not far from the Rhine, manufactures silks ; Remscheid 

 (15,000 inhabitants) is the German ShefBeld ; whilst SoUngen (15,142 inhabitants) 

 and the towns near it* are known for their cutlery. Solingen is famous for its 



Fig. 121. — Elhrort and its Environs. 

 Scale 1 : 326.000. 



6°35' B.of G 



5 Miles. 



The extent of the coal bi.sin is indicated by .shading. 



sword-blades, the art of tempering them, it is said, having been introduced there 

 from Damascus. 



The number of towns to the north of the railway whi(îh juins Dûsseldorf to 

 Elberfeld is somewhat less bewildering. Mettmann (6,500 inhabitants), near which 

 is the famous Neander Valley with its bone caves ; Werden (6,746 inhabitants), 

 in the abbey of which was preserved Ulfila's Gothic translation of the Bible until 

 the Swedes carried it off during the Thirty Years' War ; and other towns are still 

 separated by wide stretches of open country. But to the north of the Ruhr, and 

 close upon the borders of the country, we come upon another group of manufactur- 

 ing towns, whose growth has perhaps been even more rapid than that of those 

 mentioned previously. The most important of these is Essen (76,450 inhabitants), 

 which in less than fifty years has grown into one of the most populous towns of 

 Prussia. Essen supplies Germany and the world with those famous cast-steel 



* Including Merscheid (10,017 inhabitants), Dorp (11,380 inhabitants), Hoscheid (9,959 inhabitants), 

 Wald (7,701 inhabitants), &c. 



