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.