HYDROGRAPHY. With the exception of the southeastern part of Germany, through which the Danube flows to the east, all the rivers belong to the Baltic and the North Sea basins. The Rhine is the only river which binds together the three great topographic forms—the High Alps, the German highlands, and the low plain. It belongs to three countries—Switzerland, Ger many, and the Netherlands. Commercially, it is the most important river in Germany, small river steamers being able to ascend to Basel, and small sea-going steamers to Mannheim. The Weser and the Elbe, the latter rising in Austria, bind together the German highlands and low plain. The Elbe is second only to the Rhine in commercial importance, being navigable through Out the whole of its course in Germany. Along its course are some of the most important silver and coal mines, salt-fields, sheep-pastures, and beet-root areas in the Empire. Besides being the greatest water commerce carrier through Central Germany from the south border to the North Sea, it links Berlin, the capital and busi ness centre, with Hamburg, the chief port, by the canals of the Havel and Spree river systems. The Weser is also of great importance in its lower course. The Oder and the Vistula are the chief Baltic rivers. Both rise in Austria, have only a short course in the highlands, and flow mainly through the lowland. The Oder is the great waterway of the rich mining and manufac turing district of Silesia, and of the wide farm ing area around Frankfort-on-the-Oder; with the canal leading to the Spree it is a highway for Berlin's commerce from Southeast Prussia to the port of Stettin. The lower part of the Vistula is German, but it carries a great deal of Russian timber, grain, and fibres to Danzig for export.
Among other important streams are the Ems, flowing into the North Sea, the Main and the Moselle, affluents of the Rhine, the Pregel and Memel, flowing into the Baltic, and the Seale, an affluent of the Elbe. The rivers of Germany are naturally navigable for nearly 6000 miles; are canalized for nearly 1400 miles; and there are nearly 1500 miles of canals. Among the most important of the canals are the Ludwigs kanal in Bavaria, uniting the Danube with the Main, and thus supplying a continuous waterway from the North to the Black Sea; the system connecting the Memel with the Pre gel; that joining the Oder with the Elbe; the Plauen Canal, connecting the Elbe with the Havel; the Eider Canal, connecting the Eider with Kiel; the Rhine-Rhone, and the Rhine Marne, in Alsace-Lorraine; the great Baltic Sea or Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, begun in 1887 and opened for traffic in 1895, saving two days' time by steamer between Hamburg and all the Baltic ports of Germany; and several canals in process of construction.
The lakes of Germany are chiefly in two groups, of which the smaller is in the southern section, in the Alpine Foreland. These lakes are found only in regions once covered by gla cier ice, and their existence is closely connected with the ice sheet that descended from the Alps during the Great Ice Age. The larger group extends over the northern lowland, with the greatest number of lakes east of the Elbe, on the Baltic lake plain, where there are hundreds of them of glacial origin.