Danzig

Danzig, a commercial city and seaport, capital of the province of West Prussia, on the Vistula, is strongly fortified, and connected by rail with the principal towns of Germany. Circular in form, with four gates and nine suburbs, its general appearance is sombre and dull. It contains a cathedral and numerous other ecclesiastical buildings, with schools, a public library, observatory, museum, hospitals, arsenal, navy yard, etc. Its principal manufactures are gunpowder, vitriol, firearms, tobacco, silks, woollens, ribbons, wire, jewellery, and gold and silver stuffs. It is the seat also of flour-mills, breweries, distilleries, sugar refineries, and dye-works. Among its exports it reckons various kinds of grain, timber, spirits, beer, zinc, linens, and flax. The city was formerly one of the Hanse Towns, under the control, first of the Teutonic knights and then of Poland, but fell to Prussia at the second partition of Poland in 1793. A canal enables large vessels to come close up to the town, which is 284 miles N.E. of Berlin by rail.