erce and
transportation, the iron and steel industry has greatly expanded. The
chief centre of this industry is the valley of the Ruhr River.
Coal-measures underlie an area somewhat larger than the basin of the
river. To the industrial centres of this valley iron ore is brought by
the Rhine and Moselle barges from Alsace-Lorraine and Luxemburg, and
also from the Hartz Mountains.

In the importance and extent of manufactures, Germany ranks next to
Great Britain among European states, and because of the extent of their
coal-fields the Germans seem destined in time to surpass their rivals.
The manufacture of textiles is one of the leading industries, and, next
to Great Britain, Germany is the heaviest purchaser of raw cotton from
the United States. The Rhine district is the chief centre of cotton
textile manufacture. Raw cotton is delivered to the mills by the Rhine
boats, and these carry the manufactured product to the seaboard. Central
and South America are the chief purchasers.

Woollen goods are also extensively manufactured, the industry being in
the region that produces Saxony wool. In Silesia and the lower Rhine
provinces there are also extensive woollen textile manufactures, but the
goods are made mainly from imported wool. Argentina and the other Plate
River countries are the chief buyers of these goods. There is a
considerable linen manufacture from German-grown flax, and silk-making,
mainly from raw silk imported from Italy.

The great expansion and financial success of the manufacturing
enterprises is due very largely to the admirable organization of the
lines of transportation. The rivers, with their connecting canals,
supplement the railways instead of competing with them. They are
utilized mainly for slow freights, while the railways carry the traffic
that demands speed. The possibilities of both inland water-ways and
railway transportation have been utilized by the Germans to the utmost,
with the result of a very low rate both for coal and ore, and for
structural iron and steel. The latter is carried from the various
steel-making plants in the Ruhr Valley to the seaboard at a rate of
eighty to ninety cents per ton.[70]

[Illustration: LUeBECK]

[Illustration: BREMEN]

All this has resulted in a wonderful commercial expansion of the
empire. In 1875 Germany was neither a maritime nor a naval power. At the
close of the century it ranked about with the United States as a naval
power, and far surpassed t