File:Germany (1883) (14583924727).jpg

Identifier: german00bari (find matches)
Title: Germany
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine), 1834-1924
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Low
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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own, now a flat marshy plain. But the largestlake of all was the Erdinger Moos, with its arm,the Dachauer Moos, now completely choked by theIsar and by the encroachment of peat. The soil of the Bavarian plain is not fertile, andhabitations are few and far between. The villagesare wide-spreading, the houses cover much ground,even the dead in the churchyards have plenty ofelbow-room—all evidence that the soil is notprecious. Wide tracts are covered with forest, andthe dreary peat swamps have only in recent yearsbeen converted into corn-fields by drainage.Other portions are bald, pebbly, sandy wastes, withonly a little coarse grass and a few shrubs sprout-ing between the stones. Near the Danube, how-ever, there is better soil; and the Dunkelboden,the plain from Ratisbon to Strassburg and beyond,is the great corn-garner of Bavaria and a largeportion of Upper Germany. Hops are extensivelygrown on the plain. As this elevated plateau lieshigh, and has the Alps, with their snowfields, as a,
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THE GLACIS. 133 wall to the south, it follows that the climate is coldand trying. The north and north-west winds, charged withmoisture, are condensed over the lofty, chilly plain ;and the south winds as they waft over the snowyfields of the Alps lose their heat, and breathe with-out their proper warmth across its desolate face. In this plain are only two cities of any impor-tance, Augsburg and Munich. Augsburg standson the high road from Venice to the north, and itsmediaeval importance was due to this ; Munich isthe capital of Bavaria and the seat of the court andof government. Augsburg, the Augusta Vindelicorum of theRomans, stands near the Lech, which receives theWertach a little below the town ; it occupies thecentre of the Bavarian plain, and is the point ofjunction of all the roads that cross it. To itleads the high road from Italy, over the Brennerand down the Lech Thai through the ScharnitzPass, and thence it goes to Niirnberg, the mainMid-German central highway, by the valley

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