The Upper Engadine consists of a long, straight, nearly level trough of 26 m., varying from a mile to half a mile in breadth, through which flows the Inn. On the south-east this trough is limited by the lofty glacier-clad Bernina group (culminating in the Piz Bernina, 13,304 ft.) and the range rising between the Inn valley and that of Livigno to the south-east, while on the north-west the boundary is the extensive Albula group (culminating in Piz Kesch, 11,228 ft.). The Lower Engadine is far more picturesque and romantic than the Upper Engadine, the Inn valley being here much narrower and the fall greater. On its north-west rises the last bit of the Albula group (culminating in Piz Vadret, 10,584 ft.), and on the north the Silvretta group (culminating in Piz Linard, 11,201 ft.), while to the east and south are the ranges on either side of the Ofen Pass (culminating in Piz Sesvenna, 10,568 ft.). In the Upper Engadine the villages are on the floor of the valley, but in the Lower Engadine many are perched high above the bed of the river on terraces, and are cut off from each other by deep ravines.
The Upper Engadine is far better known to foreign visitors than the Lower Engadine, and is consequently much richer and more prosperous. The mineral waters of St Moritz (q.v.) were known and employed in the 16th century, and long formed the great attraction of the region. But about the middle of the 19th century the Upper Engadine came into fashion as a great “air-cure,” and now Maloja, Sils, Silvaplana, Campfer and St Moritz are all well known; those who desire to explore the glaciers of the Bernina group mostly resort to Pontresina, on the Flatzbach, the stream descending from the Bernina Pass. Yet, owing to its great elevation, the scenery of the Upper Engadine has a bleak, northern aspect. Pines and larches alone flourish, garden vegetables are grown only in sunny spots, and there is no tillage. The Alpine flora is very rich and varied. But snow falls even in August, and the climate is well described in the proverb, “nine months winter, and three months cold weather.” The villages are built entirely of stone (as also in the Lower Engadine), chiefly to guard against destructive fires that were formerly frequent in this narrow, wind-swept valley. The wealth of the inhabitants consists in their hay meadows and pastures. The lower pastures support large herds of cows, while the higher are let out (in both parts of the valley) to Bergamasque shepherds, who come thither every summer with their flocks. In the Lower Engadine the chief attraction is formed by the mineral springs at Schuls below Tarasp, which are much frequented during the summer. The wild gorge of Finstermünz separates the last Swiss village, Martinsbruck, from the first Tirolese village, Pfunds, the gorge being passable only on foot, while the carriage road makes a great detour by way of Nauders, so that the two villages named are 13 m. by road from each other. The earliest full description of the country by an English traveller is that by Archdeacon W. Coxe, in Travels in Switzerland (London, 1789).
The Upper Engadine is not mentioned in authentic documents till 1139, the bishop of Coire being then the great lord, and, from the 13th century, having as his bailiffs the family of Planta, the original seat of which was at Zuz. The valley obtained its freedom from both in 1486 (Planta) and in 1526, when the temporal powers of the bishop were abolished. In 1367 it (as well as the bishop’s vassals in the Lower Engadine) joined the newly founded League of God’s House or Gotteshausbund (see [Grisons]), one of the 3 Raetian Leagues, which lasted till 1799-1801, when the whole Engadine became part of Canton Raetia of the Helvetic Republic, which, in 1803, altered its name to that of Grisons or Graubünden, and then first entered the Swiss Confederation. In the Upper Engadine the “Referendum” existed as between the different villages composing a bailiwick (Hochgericht). The history of the Lower Engadine is for long quite different. Though always comprised in the diocese of Coire, it formed from the early 9th century onwards (with the Vintschgau) a separate county, which was gradually absorbed in that which, later, took the name of the county of Tirol. The limit between the Upper Engadine and the Tirolese Lower Engadine was definitively fixed in 1282 at the Punt’ Ota (the high bridge) just above Brail, and mentioned in 1139 already. In 1363 Tirol came into the possession of the Habsburgers, who were troublesome neighbours both to the Upper Engadine and to the League of God’s House. Their power was stemmed in 1499 at the battle of the Calven gorge (above Mals), though it was only in 1652 that the Lower Engadine bought up the remaining rights of the Habsburgers. But the castle of Tarasp (acquired by them in 1464) was excepted: the lordship was given by them in 1687 to the Dietrichstein family, and held by it till 1801, when Austria ceded it to France, which, in 1803, handed it over to the Swiss Confederation, by which it was incorporated in 1809 with the Canton of the Grisons. This long connexion with Tirol accounts for the fact that Tarasp is still mainly Romanist, while the lonely Swiss valley of Samnaun (above Martinsbruck) has given up its Protestantism and its Ladin speech owing to communications with Tirol being easier than with Switzerland. The bears in the bear pit at Bern come from the forests in the lower Spöl valley, above Zernez, in the Lower Engadine, on the way to the Ofen Pass. The upper Spöl valley (Livigno) is Italian (see [Valtellina]).
Authorities.—M. Caviezel, Das Oberengadin, 7th edition (Coire, 1896); C. Decurtius, Rätoromanische Chrestomathie, vols. v.-ix. (Erlangen, 1899-1908), deals with the two divisions of the Engadine from the 16th century to modern times; Mrs H. Freshfield, A Summer Tour in the Grisons and the Italian Valleys of the Bernina (London, 1862); E. Imhof, Itinerarium des S.A.C. für die Albulagruppe (Bern, 1893), and Itinerarium des S.A.C. für die Silvretta- und Ofenpassgruppe (Mountains of the Lower Engadine) (Bern, 1898); E. Lechner, Das Oberengadin in der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1900); A. Lorria and E.A. Martel, Le Massif de la Bernina (complete monograph on the Upper Engadine, with full bibliography) (Zürich, 1894); P.C. von Planta, Die Currätischen Herrschaften in der Feudalzeit (Bern, 1881); Z. and E. Pallioppi, Dizionari dels Idioms Romauntschs d’Engiadina ota e bassa, &c. (Samaden, 1895); F. de B. Strickland, The Engadine, 2nd edition (London and Samaden, 1891); J. Ulrich, Rätoromanische Chrestomathie, vol. ii. (Halle, 1882).
(W. A. B. C.)
ENGAGED COLUMN, in architecture, a form of column, sometimes defined as semi or three-quarter detached according to its projection; the term implies that the column is partly attached to a pier or wall. It is rarely found in Greek work, and then only in exceptional cases, but it exists in profusion in Roman architecture. In the temples it is attached to the cella walls. repeating the columns of the peristyle, and in the theatres and amphitheatres, where they subdivided the arched openings: in all these cases engaged columns are utilized as a decorative feature, and as a rule the same proportions are maintained as if they had been isolated columns. In Romanesque work the classic proportions are no longer adhered to; the engaged column, attached to the piers, has always a special function to perform, either to support subsidiary arches, or, raised to the vault, to carry its transverse or diagonal ribs. The same constructional object is followed in the earlier Gothic styles, in which they become merged into the mouldings. Being virtually always ready made, so far as their design is concerned, they were much affected by the Italian revivalists.
ENGEL, ERNST (1821-1896), German political economist and statistician, was born in Dresden on the 21st of March 1821. He studied at the famous mining academy of Freiberg, in Saxony, and on completing his curriculum travelled in Germany and France. Immediately after the revolution of 1848 he was attached to the royal commission in Saxony appointed to determine the relations between trade and labour. In 1850 he was directed by the government to assist in the organization of the German Industrial Exhibition of Leipzig (the first of its kind). The success which crowned his efforts was so great that in 1854 he was induced to enter the government service, as chief of the newly instituted statistical department. He retired, however, from the office in 1858. He founded at Dresden the first Mortgage Insurance Society (Hypotheken-Versicherungsgesellschaft), and as a result of the success of his work was summoned in 1860 to Berlin as director of the statistical department, in succession to Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Dieterici (1790-1859). In his new office he made himself a name of world-wide reputation. Raised to the rank of Geheimer Regierungsrat, he retired in 1882 and lived henceforward in Radebeul near Dresden, where he died on the 8th of December 1896. Engel was a voluminous writer on the subjects with which his name is connected, but his statistical papers are mostly published in the periodicals which he himself established, viz. Preuss. Statistik (in 1861); Zeitschrift des Statistischen Bureaus, and Zeitschrift des Statistischen Bureaus des Königreichs Sachsen.