CHAPTER VIII.

THE WATERWAYS OF GERMANY. “How many spacious countries does the Rhine, In winding banks and mazes serpentine, Traverse, before he splits on Belgia’s plain, And, lost in sand, creeps to the German main.” _Sir R. Blackmore._ There is perhaps no country that enjoys greater facilities of transport than Germany, relatively to its area, its population, and its commerce. This happy condition of things is due, partly to the fostering care of a paternal government, which has taken transportation under its special care, and controls by far the larger part of the ways of communication both by land and water; partly to the competition, at low rates of freight, between railways, rivers, and canals; and partly to the close attention which has been given by traders, economists, and engineers to the problems that determine the ultimate economy of transport under different conditions. With a railway system that has now been completed to the extent of 25,000 miles, with 17,000 miles of rivers, and with 1250 miles of canal navigation that is soon likely to be considerably increased, the German Empire offers facilities for the study of the transportation problem that entitle it to the serious attention of all who are interested in the matter. This is all the more obvious that Germany, although possessed of very moderate natural resources otherwise, has attained a front rank among commercial nations. _River Systems._—The chief river systems of Germany are those of the Rhine, draining an area of 76,000 square miles, and having a course of 850 miles; the Elbe, which drains an area of 55,000 square miles, and is, next to the Rhine, the most important of the German rivers; the Oder, which has a drainage basin of 50,000 square miles, and a course of 550 miles; the Vistula, which rises in the Carpathian mountains, 2000 feet above sea level, has a drainage area of 74,000 square miles, and a length of 600 miles; the Niemen, which has a drainage area conterminous with that of the Düna, and of about the same extent, i. e., 35,000 square miles; the Weser, which has a drainage area of 18,000 square miles, and a course of 355 miles; with the Ems and one or two smaller streams. The flow of the chief streams is as follows:— River. Sea. The Danube The Black Sea. Rhine, Elbe, and Weser The North Sea. Vistula, Oder, Memel, and Pregel The Baltic. Of the Danube we shall speak at some length when we come to deal with the waterways of Austria, to which that river mainly belongs. But most of the other rivers of Germany have been more or less canalised, and we shall therefore refer to some of the changes thereby effected in river transport. _The Rhine._—The lowest velocity of the Rhine is 2·62 feet per second; the highest 11·15 feet per second, and, at Düsseldorf, 5·24 to 6·56 feet, with 9·84 feet mean-water on the Cologne gauge. The width of the river at St. Goar is 180 yards, and the depth 98 feet; at Düsseldorf it is 275 yards wide, and 72 feet deep. These are the two greatest depths of the river. In the Rheingau and the Lower Rhine, the width increases to about 770 yards. At Wesel the proportion of volume of low and high water is 1·14. The steamers now employed to navigate the Rhine are constructed for cargoes of about 800 tons. The first improvement-works were carried out from 1847 to 1850; in 1868, with low water equal to 4·92 on the Cologne gauge, the channel from Bingen to Coblenz was clear to an equal minimum depth of 6·56 feet; from Coblenz to Cologne 8·2 feet; and from Cologne to Rotterdam, 9·84 feet. In 1874, the 8·2 feet channel was extended from Cologne to St. Goar. With the improvement works, the width of the river channel is now from 100 to 160 yards; below Cologne it expands to 330 yards. The cost of the works has been as under:— £ Previous to 1851 650,000 1881-1861 225,000 1861-1879 475,000 The remaining works are to be completed within eighteen years at an estimated cost of 1,100,000 ────────── Making the total expenditure £2,450,000 ────────── Down to Cologne the banks rise above water level. Further seawards the ground is low-lying, and dykes have to be employed. These commence near Düsseldorf. The traffic carried on the Rhine is very considerable, especially between the Dutch ports and the Westphalian manufacturing districts. It embraces large quantities of coal, iron ore, iron and steel manufactures, &c., and the cost of its transport compares favourably with railway rates. The navigable length of the Rhine is 435 miles, and on this length it has a yearly traffic of about 5500 vessels, averaging some 200 tons each. The Rhine has a greater density of traffic than the Danube, on which only some 800 vessels are employed, also averaging some 200 tons; but the Danube, which is navigable to Regensburg, 281 miles from Vienna, has a much longer navigation. It is believed that chain traction could be carried as far as Ulm, which is 131 miles farther. _The Ems._—This river has a limited interior communication, the tide flowing for not more than 15 to 20 miles. The Ems takes its rise only in the territory of Münster, receiving the river Hase, a little above Meppen, and the Söste at Leer, and it is navigable at no great distance in its current. It then runs by the Dollart, a sort of bay betwixt Emden and the Dutch coast, into the North Sea, in two branches; one called the eastern, the other the western Ems, forming betwixt them the island of Borcum. Formerly the river passed close by Embden, from a cut being made to force the current of the river that way, but, being neglected, it has taken its course by the coast of Gröningen. A narrow channel from Embden is, however, kept clear, in consequence of four sluices in the town, which are opened whilst the ebb tide continues. The Ems has enjoyed a considerable degree of celebrity, not so much from its extent as from its local advantages, and from the political situation of Holland. It enjoys a free navigation by its neutrality, it is under the protection of Prussia, and it is contiguous to Delfzyl, an excellent entrance into Holland, by a canal which runs through the northern provinces, by the city of Gröningen, into the Zuyder Zee. It thus communicates with all Holland and Flanders, the trade of which countries, and some parts of Germany and France, were formerly largely carried on by it. _The Mosel._—The canalisation of the Mosel from Frouard to Diedenhofen, nearly 57 miles, is a portion of an intended navigable communication from Louisenthal, on the Rhine-Marne canal system, to Saar-Kohbenbecken, on the Saar. From Frouard to Arnaville, about 25 miles, it was carried out by the French Government between 1867 and 1870; and from Arnaville to Metz by the Prussian Government, under Herr J. Schlichting, between 1872 and the present time. The canalisation from Metz to Diedenhofen, and the proposed connection between the Nied canals of the Mosel, the Saar, and the Maas, remain to be completed. As the main object of this canalisation was to provide a navigable passage for craft having a draught of 5·9 feet, the minimum depth of water was fixed at 6·56 feet. The bottom width of the canal is 39·4 feet. Of the 25·15 miles of river dealt with by the French, only 3·14 miles were rendered navigable. The remainder of the main course adapted for navigation consisted of four portions of canal, in all 17 miles in length. In addition there were 1·25 mile of short canals, connecting the main course with the Mosel. Corresponding to the canals there are four movable weirs in the Mosel at Custines, Marbache, Dieulouard, and Pont-à-Mousson, which maintain the necessary water-level in dry seasons. The fall from the Rhine-Marne Canal at Frouard to the Mosel system is 26·25 feet, and the fall from Frouard to Amaville is 48·6 feet, overcome by six locks. The cost of these 20 miles of navigable channel is stated by the French engineers to have been 208,000_l_. The German works recently executed include a continuation of the main canal from Arnaville to Novéant, where it debouches into the Mosel for a length of 1·05 mile; the canalisation of the Mosel itself thence to Jouy-aux-Arches, 3·38 miles long, where a movable weir maintains the water-level in this reach; and a main canal thence to Metz on the right bank of the river, 5·55 miles long. The branch canals are comparatively independent of the above. One of them is situated on the left bank at Ars, and consists of a rectification of a side channel of the river, 2·54 miles long, intended solely for the use of the iron foundries of that town; a feeder of this, being on low-lying ground, requires special protective embankments. The other, 1258 yards long, connects the main canal with a basin at the railway terminus at Metz. The portion of the Mosel from the embouchure of the Ars branch canal down to the island of Vaux is made into a navigable basin for the use of the foundries, a movable weir at the latter place giving the necessary increased depth of water. _The Rhine and Danube Canal._—In 1834 an elaborate report was made by C. T. Kleinschrod, of Munich, relative to the feasibility of constructing a canal to connect the Rhine and the Danube.[71] The proposal was to proceed from the Rhine by way of the Main as far as Bamberg, and there commence a canal which should proceed by Nüremberg to Keeheim, where it would effect a junction with the Danube. The total length of the artificial waterway between these two points, Bamberg and Keeheim, was stated at 23⅓ German miles. The writer of the pamphlet made an elaborate estimate of the probable cost of the undertaking, which had the support of the King of Bavaria, and it was demonstrated that at that time, when there were hardly any railways in Germany, it would be attended with a great economy of transport. Owing, however, to the competition of railways, and the extent to which they soon afterwards met the requirements of the country, the project was not entirely successful. The canal was completed in 1844. It is 110 miles long and 7 feet deep. The Danube, which is practically navigable from the town of Regensburg, 281 miles westward of Vienna, and the Black Sea, is the chief important waterway of Austria. Communication is obtained with Prussia by the Danube-Oder canal, and it is now proposed to establish a communication between this canal and the Elbe, in which case, traffic could be carried from Vienna to Hamburg by water all the way. It has been suggested to have communication made between the Danube and the Rhine either by Dilligen, 31 miles below Ulm, _viâ_ Königsbronn, 1640 feet above sea-level, to the Neckar, and from Cannstadt to Mannheim, and alternatively by Kehlheim, Nuremburg, and Bamberg, an ascent of 1375 feet to the Main, whence Mayence would be reached _viâ_ Frankfort. _The Oder and the Elbe Canal._—At an early period in the history of European trade, the desirability of having the Oder and the Elbe connected by an artificial waterway was discussed. This was even more of a desideratum about a century and a half ago than it is to-day. At that time, Stettin, which is built on the west side of the Oder, about 46 miles from its mouth, was perhaps the leading commercial city in Germany, having a large trade with England, France, and other countries on the west, with Scandinavia, and with the Baltic countries. The importance of joining such a port with Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, and with other cities either upon or near to the Elbe, was manifest. The first canal built for this purpose was that of Plaven, completed in