Volume 1

Germany / by F.J. Monkhouse [and others].

  • Great Britain. Naval Intelligence Division
Date:
1944-1945
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Germany / by F.J. Monkhouse [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    GENERAL PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION The Evolution of the Landscape: River Systems: Major Regions: Biblio- graphical Note. The area of Germany in 1938, that is including the Saar district _ but excluding Austria and subsequent acquisitions, was 181,723 sq. miles—or some three times the size of England’ and Wales. Broadly speaking, this area consists of two types of country— lowland in the north and uplands in the south, each occupying about one-half of the Reich. ‘The northern lowlands stretch from the North Sea eastwards into Poland and beyond ; they are not so much flat as undulating, and their greatest elevations rarely exceed 600 ft. To the south come the uplands, which consist of old mountain blocks and their intervening depressions. ‘The _ varied relief of this area averages from 1,500 to 2,500 ft., rising to about 5,000 ft. in places. The area is bounded on the south by outer ranges of the Alps, which form roughly the southern frontier of Germany ; here the highest point is the Zugspitze (9,720 ft.) in the Bavarian Alps. THE EVOLUTION OF THE LANDSCAPE These broad physical facts result from the geological history of the area, which may conveniently be considered under the four headings of mountain-building, erosion, glaciation and reclamation. Mountain-building During Upper Carboniferous times the existing rocks were folded and crumpled by earth pressures to form a series of great mountain chains stretching from Ireland and Spain right across central Europe ; they have been called the Hercynian system, from the Hercymia silva or Hercynian forest, a term applied by the Romans to what is now roughly Bohemia. Large masses of granite were intruded into the cores of this range, and some of the more deeply buried sediments were changed by heat and pressure into schistose rocks. These granitic and other rocks may now be seen as upstanding masses in what remains of the mountain range—for GH (Germany 1) I
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