140 GEOGRAPHY. 



6. Berlin {Plate 38). 



Berlin, the first city of the Prussian Monarchy, lies in the former Mark, 

 and present Province of Brandenburg, in a perfectly level, sandy, and 

 unattractive region, on the Spree. Its present population is 400,000, 

 amongst which are 7000 Jews, 5-6000 Roman Catholics, 5500 French 

 Reformed, 850 Bohemian Protestants, and the rest Evangelical. It is 

 incontestably one of the most beautifully built cities in Europe, and, in its 

 newer quarters, has a large number of superb edifices. It is divided into the 

 following six parts : Berlin Proper or Old Berlin, Old and New Cologne (the 

 oldest parts of the city), Friedrichstadt, Friedrichswerder, Dorothea- or 

 Neustadt, Friedrich-Wilhems-stadt ; to these must be added the Konigsstadt, 

 the Spandau and Stralau quarters, together with the Oranienburg, the 

 Rosenthal, the Potsdam, and the Kopenick Suburbs (the latter now 

 Louisenstadt). The Friedrichs- and the Neustadt are especially distin- 

 guished by broad and perfectly straight streets. The most conspicuous are 

 the Linden, with a fourfold avenue of lindens, 2000 paces long and 160 feet 

 broad; the Friedrichsstrasse, 8250 paces long; Konigsstrasse, 2170 paces ; 

 Wilhelmsstrasse, 4650 paces ; the Leipzigerstrasse, and the new Friedrichs- 

 strasse. The most beautiful squares are the Paris square, Wilhelmsplatz, 

 with six Marble Statues of Prussian Generals of the Seven Years' war; 

 the Belle Alliance Platz, with a column supporting a Victory, in com- 

 memoration of the twenty-five years' peace of 1840 ; the Lustgarten ; the 

 square in front of the Arsenal ; the Opera square, with the statues of 

 Bliicher, Scharnhorst, and Biilow ; the Gendarmen Mark, 440 paces long ; 

 the Donhof, the Leipzig, and the Schlossplatz. Among the gates, the Branden- 

 burg Gate, at the end of the Linden, deserves especial mention ; it consists of 

 twelve Corinthian columns of forty-four feet in height and five in diameter ; 

 it is 195 feet broad, 64 feet high, and built after the model of the Propylaea at 

 Athens ; upon it stands the celebrated four span of horses with the Victoria. 

 Of the forty bridges across the Spree (among them six of iron and eighteen 

 of stone), the most conspicuous are the Long Bridge, with the bronze 

 equestrian statue of the great Elector ; and the new Palace Bridge. Of the 

 thirty-three churches, none deserve especial notice ; the most beautiful are 

 the recently restored Convent Church, and the new Friedrichswerder 

 Church ; in the place of the old unsightly Cathedral, built in 1748, a much 

 larger is to be erected, surrounded by a Campo Santo, containing the burial- 

 place of the Royal House, and decorated with frescoes by Cornelius. The 

 most conspicuous pubhc buildings are the King's Palace, 460 feet long, 

 with four courts, 500 chambers, and a beautiful dome ; the Arsenal, 280 

 feet long ; the Opera House ; the Royal Library (containing over 250,000 

 volumes, and 4600 manuscripts) ; the University Building ; the. Museum 

 of Art and Antiquity (in a former bed of the river, placed on 8000 piles), a 

 quadrangle 276 feet long, 179 feet deep, to which has been recently added 

 a second Museum (not yet completed) ; the Mint ; the Architects' School ; 

 the Royal Guard House ; the building of the Academy of Sciences ; the 

 140 



