ciZAirarE ON THE HAETZ. 131 



Streffleur, in a paper, Ueher die Natur und die Wirhmgen der Wildhdche, 

 which first appeared in the Ber. der M. N. W. Glasse der Kaiserl. ATcad. der 

 Wiss. for February 1852, maintains that all the observations and specula- 

 tions of French authors on the nature of torrents had been anticipated by 

 Austrian -writers ; and in support of this assertion he refers to the works of 

 Franz von Zallinger, 1778, Von Arretin, 1808, Franz Duile, 1826,— all 

 published at Innsbruck, — and Hagen's BeschreibuTig neuerer WasserhauwerTce, 

 published in Konigsberg in 1826. And M. C6zanne, in his continuation of 

 the treatise of M. Surell, says, and says unhesitatingly, after speaking of 

 the importance of utilizing, taming, and domesticating torrents, — as beasts 

 and birds have been tamed, domesticated, and utilized, — "JFrance and 

 Switzerland are not the only countries in which the struggle against 

 devastating running waters is being carried on with alternate triumphs and 

 defeats. And we may conclude from the works now analyzed, and from 

 the numerous publications which there are of the same kind, that the time 

 is stUl remote when man shall have completely subdued, and, if the word 

 may be used, domesticated, tamed, and utilized the wild waters of the 

 mountains. But there is one happy land, the picture of which, contrasting 

 with these gloomy sketches, may be offered to inquirers as a model and as 

 an encouragement. It is the German Eartz. 



' ' This mountainous mass, almost isolated on aU sides, and but lately divided 

 amongst four Governments, raises its highest summit — the Brocken — to a 

 height of 1^50 metres, upwards of 4000 feet; steep slopes and deep thalwegs 

 are not awanting, nor are abundant rains — the rainfall ranging from 600 to 

 1500 millimetres (from 24 to 60 inches). The ground is very diversified; 

 granitic eruptions have dislocated schists of all kinds ; all circumstances 

 and conditions favourable to torrential phenomena are there in combination ; 

 but the miniug industry, in quest of motive power, has seized upon the 

 water — a force supplied without money and without price, and renewed 

 unceasingly by nature ; and it may be said that there there is not a single 

 drop left to foUow its natural course ; from the highest slopes the rain is 

 collected in furrows forming gutters ; all the ravines are closed up, and 

 numerous ponds store up their supplies ; coUeoted in canals the waters 

 make the circuit of the brows of the hiUs, are carried across valleys, bury 

 themselves in projecting spurs, and, conducted to the gate of the factories, 

 move the hydraulic wheels placed one below another at all the descending 

 levels of the mountains ; and, coming at length to the thalweg, the waters 

 are not yet freed, — they are made to descend into the mine and there to 

 work underground. 



" Seventy ponds or reservoirs of the Ober Hartz have an area of 240 

 hectares ; they store up fifteen millions of cubic mfetres, which put in move- 

 ment above groimd 180 water-wheels, and uildergroimd 23 wheels and 

 2 hydraulic presses." 



From the report of MM. Belgrand and Lemoine, in the Annales des Fonts 

 et Jb'aux, for 1868 (II. p. 307), it appears, — " There are in all 200 kilometres 

 (upwards of 150 miles) of canals employed to bring the waters to the ponds, 

 and to lead them to the manufactories and to the mines. 



" From the highest situated pond (Hirschler Teich) to the Lcmtenthal, 



there is for wheels above ground a total fall of 292 metres (weU-nigh 1000 feet), 



" For the mines the available fall is still greater ; it is about 370 metres 



(nearly 1260 feet). These waters underground give motion to draining 



pumps and other machinery, are re-united in different galleries or tunnela— ' 



