THE BASIN OF THE MIDDLE ELBE. 



291 



is in Saxony that the last cromlechs of Central Europe are met with, and only 

 on reaching the Crimea do we once more find examples of these ancient funereal 

 monuments. 



The rivers and rivulets rising on the Erzgebirge have scooped themselves out 

 deep channels, and flow through picturesque valleys bounded by steep cliffs. In 

 the east, where the Elbe escapes from Bohemia, the sandstone, exposed to the 

 action of water and the weather, forms huge blocks of astonishing regularit}'. 

 The cliffs rising above the Elbe almost look like walls constructed by the 

 hand of man. At one spot a huge bastion, joined to the plateau by a narrow 

 neck of land, juts out towards the river like a cyclopean wall, whilst elsewhere 

 the rock has been completely broken up, its fragments being scattered over the 



Fig. 166. — Density of Population in the Kingdom of Saxony. 

 Scale 1 : 2,300,000. 



Inhabitants to a Square Mile 



sa 



52 - lOi tOi-155 (IS5-S07 207-21)0 200-311 



sei-iU Oiei-ilÂ 



valley. Many of the rocks are grotesquely shaped. One of them, the Konigstein, 

 is crowned by a fortress absolutely impregnable. Another, the Lilienstein, 

 occupies a peninsula on the left bank of the river, and forms perhaps the most 

 beautiful feature of what is not very appropriately termed Saxon Switzerland. 

 Some of the rocks have the shape of obelisks, one of the most curious of these 

 being the Prebischer Kegel, a wonderful pile commanding a wide horizon of 

 woods and rocks. The Bastei, to the east of Wehlen, is no less remarkable. 



The cliffs along the Elbe above Pirna are being actively quarried, and 

 the stone is exported as far as Hamburg, which to a large extent is built with 

 it. Quite recently a huge mass of rock, 2G0 feet in height, which had been 

 undermined by the quarrymen, tumbled into the river, and intenuptcd its 



