fortifications, being nearly completed at Strassburg and Metz. (Official Communication.)

2. Navy.

The formation of a German navy, due to the initiative of Prussia, dates from 1848, and rapid progress has been made in it for the last ten years. The fleet of war of the Empire consisted, at the end of 1878, of 20 ironclads, including 5 not completed, 58 other steamers, and 4 sailing vessels.

The following is a tabulated list of the 20 ironclads, divided into frigates, corvettes, and floating batteries. The columns of the table exhibit, similar to that descriptive of the British ironclad navy, first, the thickness of armour at the water-line; secondly, the number and size of guns; thirdly, the indicated horse-power of the engines; and fourthly, the tonnage, that is, displacement in tons. The ironclads marked by an asterisk (*) before their name were not completed at the end of 1878:

The two most powerful ships of the navy are the ironclads Kaiser and Deutschland, both built by Messrs. Samuda, Brothers, Poplar, the first launched March 19, and the second September 12, 1874. The Kaiser and Deutschland are sister-ships, 285 feet long, constructed alike in every respect, after the designs of Mr. Edward J. Reed, formerly constructor to the British navy. Each is protected with an armour belt extending all fore and aft, from 5 feet 6 inches below the water-line to the main deck, and has an armour-plated battery, fitted with eight 22-ton steel breech-loading Krupp guns, arranged to fire broadside. In addition to these eight guns, there is another gun of 18 tons weight placed aft, capable of being trained to an angle of fifteen degrees. The thickness of armour-plates on the vital parts of the belt and battery is ten inches; elsewhere it is eight inches, reduced at the ends of the ship. The upper and main deck beams of each ironclad are completely covered with steel plating.

The next most powerful ironclads of the German Imperial navy are the turret-ships, Friedrich der Grosse and Preussen. They were built at German dockyards, after the same model, during the years 1873 and 1874. Each of them has two turrets, with armour of the thickness of eleven inches round them, and the centre, and of seven inches fore and after, while the armament consists of four 26-ton guns in the turrets, and two 21-ton guns placed fore and aft. Not much inferior in size to these two turret-ships are the ironclads König Wilhelm, Prinz Friedrich Karl, and Kronprinz. The König Wilhelm, built at the Thames Ironworks, Blackwall, and launched on the 25th of April, 1868, was designed by the former Constructor of the British navy, and carries 25 12-ton guns, made of Krupp's hammered steel. The armour is 8 inches thick amidships, tapering gradually downwards to a thickness of 7 inches at 7 feet below the water-line. Behind the bowsprit and just forward of the stern are two bulkheads, each of 6 inch armour and 18 inch of teak, which continue from the lower deck up through the main deck, and rise to the height of 7 feet above the spar deck, where they are curved into the form of semicircular shields, each pierced with portholes for cannon and loopholes for musketry. Within these shields are four 300-pounders, which can be used to fire straight fore and aft, or as broadside guns. The Prinz Friedrich Karl, was built at La Seyne, near Toulon, after the model of the French frigate the Couronne. The Kronprinz, built at Poplar, by Messrs. Samuda Brothers, and launched in 1867, is constructed with armour-plating 5 inches thick, so arranged as to protect the rudder and steering apparatus, as well as the whole of the lower deck. The armament consists of 18 steel breech-loading guns of 12 tons, besides two small pivot guns.

Among the other vessels of the German navy, the most remarkable are two torpedo steamers, completed in 1877, the Zieten and the Ulan. They are sea-going ships for offensive warfare, constructed for great speed, calculated to be not less than 20 knots per hour. Both are protected, in their most vulnerable parts, mainly under the bows, by steel armour.

There were under construction at the end of 1878, besides the ironclads enumerated in the preceding list, a number of unarmoured vessels, nearly all designed for great speed. The chief of them were four frigates, constructed on the same pattern, the Bismarck, Blücher, Moltke, and Stosch, each with engines of 2,500 horse-power, the armament consisting of sixteen 80-pounder guns.

The German navy was manned, at the end of 1878, by 5,500 seamen and boys, and officered by 1 admiral, 1 vice-admiral, 4 rearadmirals, 62 captains, and 367 lieutenants. There were, besides, nine companies of marines, six of infantry, and three of artillery, numbering 1,500 men. The sailors of the fleet and marines are raised by conscription from among the seafaring population, which is exempt on this account from service in the army. Great inducements are held out for able seamen to volunteer in the navy, and the number of these in recent years has been very large. The total seafaring population of Germany is estimated at 80,000, of whom 48,000 are serving in the merchant navy at home, and about 6,000 in foreign navies.

Germany has three ports of war, at Kiel and Danzig, on the Baltic, and at Wilhelmshaven in the Bay of Jade, on the North Sea. The last-named, most important of harbours for the newly-created German navy, was opened by the Emperor-King on the 17th June, 1869. The port of Wilhelmshaven is a vast artificial construction of granite, and comprises five separate harbours, with canals, sluices to regulate the tide, and an array of dry docks for ordinary and ironclad vessels. The first harbour is an artificial basin, flanked by granite moles, respectively 4,000 and 9,600 feet long. This basin, called the entrance,' is 700 feet long and 350 wide, and leads to the first sluice, 132 feet long and 66 wide. The next basin, or outer harbour is 600 feet long and 400 wide; the second sluice, immediately behind, as long and as wide as the first. Then follows a canal 3,600 feet long, varying in width from 260 to 108 feet, and having about halfway another harbour for dredging-steamers and similar craft. This leads to the port proper, consisting of a basin 1,200 feet long and 750 wide, with a smaller basin for boats. At the back of the principal harbour there are two large shipyards.

Area and Population.

The following table gives the area and population of the twenty-five States of Germany in the order of their areas, and of the Reichsland

of Alsace-Lorraine, together with the average density of population of each, as returned at the last census, taken December 1, 1875:

At the census of December 1, 1875, the number of males was 20,986,701, and the number of females 21,740,659, being an excess of 753,958 females over males in the total population of the Empire.

The population of Germany was 23,103,211 in 1816, at the end of the great wars against France, and thirty years after, in 1837, it had risen to 30,010,711, representing an average annual increase of nearly 1 per cent. At the general census of 1858, the population of Germany was found to be 35,334,538, showing an average annual increase of little more than 2 per cent.; while, the return of the census of 1867, the last preceding the great war against France, gave a total of 38,495,926 souls, amounting to an average annual increase of per cent. From the census of 1867 to that of 1871, the war intervening, the increase was only at the rate of 0.58 per annum; but from 1871 to 1875 it rose to 0.98 per cent. per annum.

The following table exhibits the comparative census results of the years 1871 and 1875, with the increase or decrease, both abso

lute and per cent. per annum, in each of the 25 states of Germany, ranked according to population in 1875, and in Alsace-Lorraine :

The population of Alsace-Lorraine given in the second column in the preceding table is that of the French census of December 31, 1866, thus making the interval brought under comparison nearly five years, instead of four as in the rest of Germany.

It will be seen that the increase of population during the census period was greatest in the three Free Towns, Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck, and, next to them, in Saxony, while it was less in Prussia, and that the decrease of population was largest in the Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine.

Emigration, which formerly assumed larger proportions in Germany than in any other country of Europe, has been gradually declining