CHAPTER X. 



THE CIMBRIAN PENINSULA. 



(SCHI.ESWIG-HOLSTFIN.)* 



HE elongated peninsula which the estuary of the Elhe separates 

 from Hanover, and only a narrow ridge of uplands connects with 

 Germanj^ it might be supposed, would have become the home of 

 one race. Such, however, is not the case, for whilst the Ger- 

 mans hold the south, the Danes have established themselves in the 

 north. Formerly it was the Danes who exercised political authority in the 

 German parts of the peninsula, but the war of 1866 has changed all this, and 

 Prussia has not only acquired the purely German districts, but also a large slice 

 of territory indisputably Danish, but of great value on account of its strategical 

 positions. 



The plateau of Mecklenburg extends into Holsteiu, and from some of its most 

 elevated points the North Sea and Baltic may be seen simultaneously. The 

 Bungsberg (522 feet), the cubninating point of the entire peninsula, rises a few 

 feet higher than the steei^le of St. Nicholas at Hamburg. A wide depression, 

 through which the Eider takes its winding course, extends from the North Sea 

 to the fiord of the Schlei, and separates these southern heights from the northern 

 ones, which stretch through Schleswig and Jutland to the extremity of the latter. 

 Magnesian limestones containing beds of gypsum and salt are the oldest rocks of 

 the country, but they are almost everywhere concealed beneath more recent 

 sedimentary deposits, and speaking geologically, the peninsula, such as it exists 

 now, is of no great age. 



Whilst Eastern Holstein and Schleswig are a continuation of Mecklenburg, the 

 western region forms an extension of Friesland and Hanover. The islands which 

 fringe the coast of Schleswig remind us of a similar chain of islands extending 

 along the coasts of Holland and Eriesland ; the marshes, which to the west of the 

 Elbe have been converted into productive Kôge, are no less fertile to the north of the 



* Area, 7,061 square iniks. Population (1875), 1,073,926. 



