United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Reaching Palestine after a protracted journey, these remained there for a long time, Wolfram fighting gallantly in every fray and making his name a terror to the Saracens. But the brave crusader was wounded eventually, and now he set out for Germany, thirsting all the way for a sight of his beloved Siebengebirge, and dreaming of the wind-swept schloss which was his home.
Imagine the Siebengebirge with the Drachenfels placed by the sea; next to it Ehrenbreitstein, and between the two an arm of the sea, somewhat wider than the Rhine, forcing its way into the land, and forming a round bay behind the mountains.
"There are mountains on the right," said Grace, some time afterwards. "Those are the Siebengebirge, as they are called. Though the name indicates seven mountains, there are thirty summits. They are very picturesque, but they are only ten or fifteen hundred feet high," continued the doctor. "There is a beautiful island in the middle of the river," added Paul.
This part of its course may be said to end at the Siebengebirge, or Seven Mountains, where the river again widens and the banks become more bare and uninteresting. Passing Bonn and Cologne, the bareness of the landscape is remarkable after the variety of that from which we have just emerged, and henceforward the river takes on what may be called a Dutch appearance.
Although some of the German lignites called Brown Coal belong to the upper parts of this series, the most important of them are of Lower Miocene date, as, for example, those of the Siebengebirge, near Bonn, which are associated with volcanic rocks.
This rupture of the barriers may have been due, in the first instance, to the terrestrial disturbances accompanying the volcanic eruptions of the Eifel and Siebengebirge, though the erosion of the gorges at Bingen and at Linz to their present depth and dimensions is of course due to prolonged river action.
M. Von Dechen, in his work on the Siebengebirge, has given a copious list of the animal and vegetable remains of the fresh-water strata associated with the brown-coal of that part of Germany. The fishes of the brown-coal near Bonn are found in a bituminous shale, called paper-coal, from being divisible into extremely thin leaves.
The Siebengebirge, although appearing as an isolated group of hills, is in reality an offshoot from the range of the Westerwald, which is connected with another volcanic district of Central Germany known as the Vogelsgebirge.
It was about the epoch we have now arrived at viz., the close of the Miocene that volcanic action burst forth in the region of the Lower Rhine. It is probable that this action commenced in the district of the Siebengebirge, and afterwards extended into that of the Moselle and the Eifel, the volcanoes of which bear evidence of recent date.
But Miss Marryat was quite equal to the occasion, being by no means new to travelling, and her French stood the test triumphantly, and steered us safely to a hotel. On the morrow we started again through Aix-la-Chapelle to Bonn, the town which lies on the borders of the exquisite scenery of which the Siebengebirge and Rolandseck serve as the magic portal.
Word Of The Day