ouring smaller towns. The
navigation on the Elbe has of recent years largely developed, and, in
addition to trade by river with Bohemia and Magdeburg-Hamburg, there is
a considerable pleasure-boat traffic during the summer months. The
communications within the city are maintained by an excellent system of
electric trams, which bring the more distant suburbs into easy connexion
with the business centre. A considerable business is done on the
exchange, chiefly in local industrial shares, and the financial
institutions number some fifty banks, among them branches of the Reichs
Bank and of the Deutsche Bank. Among the more notable industries may be
mentioned the manufacture of china (see CERAMICS), of gold and silver
ornaments, cigarettes, chocolate, coloured postcards, perfumery,
straw-plaiting, artificial flowers, agricultural machinery, paper,
photographic and other scientific instruments. There are several great
breweries; corn trade is carried on, and an extensive business is done
in books and objects of art.

_Surroundings._--The environs of the city are delightful. To the north
are the vine-clad hills of the Lussnitz commanding views of the valley
of the Elbe from Dresden to Meissen; behind them, on an island in a
lake, is the castle of Moritzburg, the hunting box of the king of
Saxony. On the right bank of the Elbe, 3 m. above the city, lies the
village of Loschwitz, where Schiller, in the summer of 1786, wrote the
greater part of his _Don Carlos_: above it on the fringe of the Dresdner
Heide, the climatic health resort Weisser-Hirsch; farther up the river
towards Pirna the royal summer palace Pillnitz; to the south the
Plauensche Grund, and still farther the Rabenauer Grund.

_History._--Dresden (Old Slav _Drezga_, forest, _Drezgajan_,
forest-dwellers), which is known to have existed in 1206, is of Slavonic
origin, and was originally founded on the right bank of the Elbe, on the
site of the present Neustadt, which is thus actually the _old_ town. It
became the capital of Henry the Illustrious, margrave of Meissen, in
1270, but belonged for some time after his death, first to Wenceslaus of
Bohemia, and next to the margrave of Brandenburg. Early in the 14th
century it was restored to the margrave of Meissen. On the division of
Saxony in 1485 it fell to the Albertine line, which has since held it.
Having been burned almost to the ground in 1491, it was rebuilt; and in
the 16th century the fortifications were begun an