HARWICH, a municipal borough and seaport in the Harwich parliamentary division of Essex, England, on the extremity of a small peninsula projecting into the estuary of the Stour and Orwell, 70 m. N.E. by E. of London by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901), 10,070. It occupies an elevated situation, and a wide view is obtained from Beacon Hill at the southern end of the esplanade. The church of St Nicholas was built of brick in 1821; and there are a town hall and a custom-house. The harbour is one of the best on the east coast of England, and in stormy weather is largely used for shelter. A breakwater and sea-wall prevent the blocking of the harbour entrance and encroachments of the sea; and there is another breakwater at Landguard Point on the opposite (Suffolk) shore of the estuary. The principal imports are grain and agricultural produce, timber and coal, and the exports cement and fish. Harwich is one of the principal English ports for continental passenger traffic, steamers regularly serving the Hook of Holland, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Esbjerg, Copenhagen and Hamburg. The continental trains of the Great Eastern railway run to Parkeston Quay, 1 m. from Harwich up the Stour, where the passenger steamers start. The fisheries are important, principally those for shrimps and lobsters. There are cement and shipbuilding works. The port is the headquarters of the Royal Harwich Yacht Club. There are batteries at and opposite Harwich, and modern works on Shotley Point, at the fork of the two estuaries. There are also several of the Martello towers of the Napoleonic era. At Landguard Fort there are important defence works with heavy modern guns commanding the main channel. This has been a point of coast defence since the time of James I. Between the Parkeston Quay and Town railway stations is that of Dovercourt, an adjoining parish and popular watering-place. Harwich is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 1541 acres.
Harwich (Herewica, Herewyck) cannot be shown to have been inhabited very early, although in the 18th century remains of a camp, possibly Roman, existed there. Harwich formed part of the manor of Dovercourt. It became a borough in 1319 by a charter of Edward II., which was confirmed in 1342 and 1378, and by each of the Lancastrian kings. The exact nature and degree of its self-government is not clear. Harwich received charters in 1547, 1553 and 1560. In 1604 James I. gave it a charter which amounted to a new constitution, and from this charter begins the regular parliamentary representation. Two burgesses had attended parliament in 1343, but none had been summoned since. Until 1867 Harwich returned two members; it then lost one, and in 1885 it was merged in the county. Included in the manor of Dovercourt, Harwich from 1086 was for long held by the de Vere family. In 1252 Henry III. granted to Roger Bigod a market here every Tuesday, and a fair on Ascension day, and eight days after. In 1320 a grant occurs of a Tuesday market, but no fair is mentioned. James I. granted a Friday market, and two fairs, at the feast of St Philip and St James, and on St Luke’s day. The fair has died out, but markets are still held on Tuesday and Friday. Harwich has always had a considerable trade; in the 14th century merchants came even from Spain, and there was much trade in wheat and wool with Flanders. But the passenger traffic appears to have been as important at Harwich in the 14th century as it is now. Shipbuilding was a considerable industry at Harwich in the 17th century.
HARZBURG, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Brunswick, beautifully situated in a deep and well-wooded vale at the north foot of the Harz Mountains, at the terminus of the Brunswick-Harzburg railway, 5 m. E.S.E. from Goslar and 18 m. S. from Wolfenbüttel. Pop. (1905), 4396. The Radau, a mountain stream, descending from the Brocken, waters the valley and adds much to its picturesque charm. The town is much frequented as a summer residence. It possesses brine and carbonated springs, the Juliushall saline baths being about a mile to the south of the town, and a hydropathic establishment. A mile and a half south from the town lies the Burgberg, 1500 ft. above sea-level, on whose summit, according to tradition, was once an altar to the heathen idol Krodo, still to be seen in the Ulrich chapel at Goslar. There are on the summit of the hill the remains of an old castle, and a monument erected in 1875 to Prince Bismarck, with an inscription taken from one of his speeches against the Ultramontane claims of Rome—“Nach Canossa gehen wir nicht.”
The castle on the Burgberg called the Harzburg is famous in German history. It was built between 1065 and 1069, but was laid in ruins by the Saxons in 1074; again it was built and again destroyed during the struggle between the emperor Henry IV. and the Saxons. By Frederick I. it was granted to Henry the Lion, who caused it to be rebuilt about 1180. It was a frequent residence of Otto IV., who died therein, and after being frequently besieged and taken, it passed to the house of Brunswick. It ceased to be of importance as a fortress after the Thirty Years’ War, and gradually fell into ruins.
See Delius, Untersuchungen über die Geschichte der Harzburg (Halberstadt, 1826); Dommes, Harzburg und seine Umgebung (Goslar, 1862); Jacobs, Die Harzburg und ihre Geschichte (1885); and Stolle, Führer von Bad Harzburg (1899).
HARZ MOUNTAINS (also spelt Hartz, Ger. Harzgebirge, anc. Silva Hercynia), the most northerly mountain-system of Germany, situated between the rivers Weser and Elbe, occupy an area of 784 sq. m., of which 455 belong to Prussia, 286 to Brunswick and 43 to Anhalt. Their greatest length extends in a S.E. and N.W. direction for 57 m., and their maximum breadth is about 20 m. The group is made up of an irregular series of terraced plateaus, rising here and there into rounded summits, and intersected in various directions by narrow, deep valleys. The north-western and higher part of the mass is called the Ober or Upper Harz; the south-eastern and more extensive part, the Unter or Lower Harz; while the N.W. and S.W. slopes of the Upper Harz form the Vorharz. The Brocken group, which divides the Upper and Lower Harz, is generally regarded as belonging to the first. The highest summits of the Upper Harz are the Brocken (3747 ft.), the Heinrichshöhe (3425 ft.), the Königsberg (3376 ft.) and the Wurmberg (3176 ft.); of the Lower Harz, the Josephshöhe in the Auerberg group and the Viktorhöhe in the Ramberg, each 1887 ft. Of these the Brocken (q.v.) is celebrated for the legends connected with it, immortalized in Goethe’s Faust. Streams are numerous, but all small. While rendered extensively useful, by various skilful artifices, in working the numerous mines of the district, at other parts of their course they present the most picturesque scenery in the Harz. Perhaps the finest valley is the rocky Bodethal, with the Rosstrappe, the Hexentanzplatz, the Baumannshöhle and the Bielshöhle.
The Harz is a mass of Palaeozoic rock rising through the Mesozoic strata of north Germany, and bounded on all sides by faults. Slates, schists, quartzites and limestones form the greater part of the hills, but the Brocken and Victorshöhe are masses of intrusive granite, and diabases and diabase tuffs are interstratified with the sedimentary deposits. The Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous systems are represented—the Silurian and Devonian forming the greater part of the hills S.E. of a line drawn from Lauterberg to Wernigerode, while N.W. of this line the Lower Carboniferous predominates. A few patches of Upper Carboniferous are found on the borders of the hills near Ilfeld, Ballenstedt, &c., lying unconformably upon the Devonian. The structure of the Harz is very complicated, but the general strike of the folds, especially in the Oberharz plateau, is N.E. or N.N.E. The whole mass evidently belongs to the ancient Hercynian chain of North Europe (which, indeed, derives its name from the Harz), and is the north-easterly continuation of the rocks of the Ardennes and the Eifel. The folding of the old rocks took place towards the close of the Palaeozoic era; but the faulting to which they owe their present position was probably Tertiary. Metalliferous veins are common, amongst the best-known being the silver-bearing lead veins of Klausthal, which occur in the Culm or Lower Carboniferous.