Elbe
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Elbe. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
elb, an important river in central Germany. It rises in Silesia and empties into the North Sea . Prague, Dresden, Magdeburg, and Hamburg are its chief cities. By treaty it is open to the ships of all nations. By means of branches and numerous canals it is connected with a large number of the cities of central Europe, including Halle, Berlin, and Leipsic. It is well stocked with fish. For the convenience of tugs towing canal boats, a chain has been laid in the Elbe from Magdeburg to a point in Bohemia 293 miles distant. The chain is picked up by a reversible drum, and runs lengthwise of the boat. When two tugs meet, the one going down stream relinquishes the chain until the other has passed. The dripping chain is fished up, laid on the drum, and the journey is continued. Over thirty tugs use the chain. They tow many barges.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a river of Germany, one of the largest in Europe. It rises on the S. W. slopes of the Schneekoppe or Snowcap, one of the Riesengebirge, between Bohemia and Silesia. From this point it flows nearly due S. into Bohemia for about 50 miles, when it turns to the W., and after about 40 miles takes a general N. N. W. direction till it falls into the North Sea, intersecting Saxony, a considerable portion of Prussia, and in the latter part of its course separating Holstein on its right from Hanover on the left. The length, including windings, is upward of 780 miles. The Elbe is stocked with fine fish.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The rivers course is where Aiton's put it in 1910, but almost every political name in these accounts has gone: the headwaters Aiton's assigned to Silesia lie in the Czech Krkonose, Silesia itself passed to Poland in 1945, and from 1945 to 1990 a long stretch of the Elbe below Lauenburg was the fortified border between East and West Germany, patrolled rather than navigated. The chain that Aiton's described so lovingly, laid from Magdeburg into Bohemia and worked by some thirty tugs with reversible drums, was abandoned as diesel towing took over and no chain tug has run on the river for generations. The claim that the Elbe is stocked with fine fish became bitterly untrue in the twentieth century, when industrial and chemical waste from Czechoslovakia and East Germany made it one of Europes dirtiest rivers; since 1990 cleanup has brought water quality back far enough for salmon to be reintroduced. The Elbe is also now known for catastrophic flooding, most notably in August 2002, when it drowned parts of Prague and Dresden.
Written for this edition, 2026.