288 GEEMANY. 



citizens acquired 390 acres of Liud at the mouth of the Weser, and to the north of 

 the mouth of the Geeste, and there they constructed docks and quays, and a town 

 quickly sprang up around them. That to\yn, Bremerhafen, had, in 1875, 12,296 

 inhabitants. Contiguous to it is the Hanoverian (Prussian) port of Geestemiinde 

 (10,425 inhabitants), whilst Lehe (7,867 inhabitants) lies close to the north of it, 

 these three places having thus an aggregate population of 30,000 souls. 



Bremen is only inferior to Hamburg as a maritime city. Its merchants 

 dispatch vessels into every quarter of the world, and even occasionally equip 

 whalers. The principal trade, however, is carried on with the United States. 

 Petroleum, cotton, and raw tobacco rank foremost amongst the imports. The 

 conveyance of emigrants has enriched the shipowners of Bremen. Between 1832 

 and 1877 1,496,518 emigrants passed through Bremen ; in 1872 alone more than 

 80,000 were dispatched — a number which has much fallen since then. Bremen 

 took a leading share in the German arctic expeditions, and was the first town to 

 avail itself of the new sea route to the Yenisei opened by Nordenskjold.* 



Oldenburg (15,701 inhabitants), the capital of the Grand Duchy of the same 

 name, lies to the west of Bremen, on a small navigable river tributary to the 

 Lower Weser, in the midst of meadows, affording pasturage to a highl}' esteemed 

 breed of horses. 



The marshy region to the east of the Weser is known as the Duchy of 

 Bremen, and forms part of the Prussian province of Hanover. Bremervorde 

 (2,905 inhabitants), founded by Charlemagne in 788, is the principal town in that 

 part of the country. It exports peat and agricultural produce. At Kloster 

 Zevcn, or Zecen, a village with an old abbey to the south of it, the Duke of 

 Cumberland signed the convention by which he bound himself to retire beyond 

 the Elbe in 1757. 



The Basin of the Elbe. — Eastern Hanover, a country of heaths and forests, 

 is very thinly peopled, and even along the rivers tributary to the Elbe only a few 

 towns are met with. Lunehurg (17,532 inhabitants), the largest amongst them, is 

 partly built upon a rock of chalk, which here rises above the alluvial soil and 

 sand. That rock constitutes the principal source of wealth of the town, for it 

 supplies numerous cement works with the raw material they require. A spring 

 rising at its foot furnishes ingredients for the manufacture of soda, chloride of 

 lime, and sulphuric acid. The river Ilmenau, which flows past the town, enables 

 it to procure the raw produce worked up in its factories. Hence the saying that 

 mans, fons, pons are the three treasures of Lïmeburg. In the early Middle Ages 

 Bardoiciek, a few miles below Lïmeburg, was the great commercial town of that 



* Commercial statistics of Bremen for 1877 : — 



Commercial marine, 274 sea-going vessels (including CO steamers) of 216,032 tons. 

 Entered, 2,694 sea-going vessels of 946,623 tons. 

 Imports by sea, 17,045,871 cwts., valued at £15,892,590. 

 Exports by sea, 7,255,646 cwts., valued at £7,095,669. 



Imports by land and river (from the Gorman Customs Union, of which Bremen is not a member), 

 11,158,082 cwts., valued at £6,267,858 ; exports do., 12,897,365 cwts., valued at £14,452,969. 

 Imports from the United States, £7,706,157 ; exports to the United States, £2,703,955. 

 Imports of petroleum, £3,014,376 ; cotton, £2,419,062 ; tobacco, £2,407,809. 



