Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/799

11 E F K E 7G3 FREIBERG, or FREYBERG, a town of Saxony, is situated on the Miinzbach, not far from its confluence with the Mulde, and 19 miles S.W. of Dresden. It is well built, and is still surrounded by its old walls. It is the seat of the general administration of the mines throughout the kingdom, and its celebrated academy of mines, founded in 1765, is frequented by students from all parts of Europe. Connected with the academy are extensive collections of minerals and models, a library of 18,000 volumes, and in a separate building laboratories for chemistry, metallurgy, and assaying. Among its distinguished scholars it reckons Werner (who was also a professor there), Hum- boldt, Mohs, and Jameson. Freiberg has extensive manu factures of gold and silver lace, woollen cloths, linen and cotton goods, iron, copper, and brass wares, shot, gun powder, and white-lead. It has also several largo breweries. In the vicinity are numerous mines of silver, lead, copper, and cobalt, affording employment to about GOOO miners. ] The old castle of Freudenstein or Freistein, situated in one I of its suburbs, is now used as a corn magazine. In the i grounds of the castle a monument was erected to Werner in ! 1851, and one to those who fell in the Franco-German war j was erected in 1874. The cathedral, an elegant Gothic edifice, founded in the 12th century and rebuilt in the 15th century, after its almost complete destruction by fire, has a richly adorned portal in the Byzantine style, called the Golden Gate. It contains numerous monuments, among which is one in memory of Prince Maurice of Saxony, who fell in the battle of Sievershausen in 1553. In the lady chapel adjoining are the remains of Henry the Pious and his successors down to John George IV., who died in 1694. Among the other public buildings are the old town hall, dating from the 15th century, the gymnasium, the real school, the f smale burgher school, the new law courts, the cavalry barracks, the antiquarian museum, and the natural history museum. Freiberg owes its rise to the discovery of its silver mines in the 12th century. The castle of Freudenstein was erected for its defence about 1175, and the town was surrounded by walls in 1187. It was a long time one of the summer residences of the Saxon princes. The population in 1875 vas 23,559. FREIBURG, or FRIBOURG (the French form of the name), a canton of Switzerland, is situated in the district to the S.E. of the Lake of Neuchatel and the N.E. of the Lake of Geneva. At no point do its boundaries actually touch on the Lake of Geneva, but in two places they come within two or three miles of its shores. Owing to the refusal of the cantonal authorities in 1802 to incor porate the Reformed districts of Payerno and Avenches, it has a very irregular outline towards the Lake of Neu chatel, and indeed breaks up into enclaves which are com pletely surrounded by the territory of Vaud or Waadt. The only other canton with which it is conterminous is Beru, which lies to the north and east. With very slight exceptions in the south the whole canton belongs to the basin not of the Rhone but of the Rhine, being traversed throughout its entire length from south to north by the Sarine or Saane, which rises in the Sanetsch in Bern and ultimately joins the Aar below Giiminen. The surface of the country lias considerable variety of relief, but can hardly, in such a region as Switzerland, be described as mountainous. The canton, however, is the very heart of pastoral Switzerland, and the home of the "ranz des vaches." The southern portion is occupied with offshoots of the Ber nese Alps, presenting such heights ts theMole son, 6578 feet; the Dent cle Viidetze or De Lys, 6609 feet ; the Vanil des Arzes, 6513 ; the Cape au Moine, 6376 ; the Dent de Broc, 5986; Brenleyre, 7724; Follieran, 7685; andtheVanilNoir, 7825. The last is the highest elevation in the canton, and is situated in the south on the Bernese frontier to the ri"ht of the valley of the Sarine. The western and north-western districts belong to the system of the Jorat or Jurten, the most important massif being Mount Gibloux, which attains an altitude of 3945 feet. Besides the Sarine there are two considerable streams which flow partly through Freiburg territory, the Singine or Sense, which, deriving one of its head streams from Freiburg and the other from Bern, forms throughout the greatar part of its course the boundary between the two cantons, and the Broyo or Brux, which rises in the south-west near Semsales, and after traversing the outskirts of Freiburg and Vaud enters the Lake of Morat or Murten, and thus finds its way to the Lake of Neuchatel. There are a few small lakes in the canton, the most note worthy being that of Seedorf, which was lowered about 11 feet by draining operations undertaken in 1871-73 for reclaiming the marshy land around it. Mineral waters occur at Lac Noir or Schwarzsee, at Wyler-vor-Bad, at Montbarry near Gruyere, and at Bonn not far from the town of Frei burg. Out of a total area of about 340,705 acres, about 9880 may bo regarded as unproductive, 57,432 are occupied by forests, upwards of 84,100 furnish pasture, 91,876 are meadow land, 104,925 are arable fields, and 675 are vine yards. The forests are of great value to the canton, firewood and timber being among its principal exports. Though the cereals are pretty extensively cultivated, the production of grain is far under the consumption. Tobacco is an important article in the commerce of the canton, and the manufacture of Kirschivasser is widely distributed. The district of Gruyere, extending from the Singine to the Veveyse, is famous for its cheese, of which upwards of 49,000 cwts. is produced annually. With the exception of tanning and straw plaiting there are no industries that give employment to any great number of people ; but there are glass works at Semsales, a paper mill at Marly, and kilns for hydraulic lime at Tour de Treme and Chatel, and watches are made at Morat and Montilier. The canton is divided into seven districts or prefectures, and there are 277 communes and 118 Catholic and 8 Protestant parishes. The district of the Sarine num bers 25,544 inhabitants, and includes the capital of the canton ; the district of the Singine, lying towards the east, numbers 16,375, and has its administrative centre at Tavers or Tafels ; the district of the Gruyere, to the south of those already named, has 19,337 inhabitants, and includes tho chief town Bulle, with the ancient palace of the bishops of Lausanne, Tour de Treme, Vuadens, with a model cheese- dairy, Gruyere, with the old manor of its counts, Marsens, the seat of the cantonal lunatic asylum, tho convent of Valsainte, the monastery of Pont-Dieu, and the castle and village of Corbieres ; the district of the Lake numbers 14,839 inhabitants, and its chief town is Morat, the scene of the famous battle of 1476 ; the district of the Glanehas 13,176 inhabitants, and its chief town is Romont, with an ancisnt castle and ramparts and towers ; the district of the Broye has 13,706 inhabitants, and its chief town is Estevayer, a busy little place on the Lake of Neuchatel, to which it some times gives its name ; and lastly, in the far south the dis trict of Veveyse numbers 7855, and besides its chief town, Chatel-St-Denis, contains tho village of Semsales. The canton is traversed from north-east to south-west by the railway from Bern to Lausanne; another line proceeds from the town of Freiburg westward by the Lake of Neuchatel, and a third unites Romont and Bulle. Freiburg returns, according to its population, six representatives to the national council of Switzerland. Its own administration consists of a great council, to which a member is furnished by every 1200 inhabitants, a state council of seven mem bers, and a judicial council of nine. According to the census of 1870, out of a total population of 110,900, 94,000 were Catholics and 16,800 Protestants, the latter being most numerous in the district of the Lake. The Catholics