ruins of the three castles of _Egisheim_, _Haut-Hattstatt_ and _Landsberg_, the top of the _Ballon_ of _Gebwiller_, 1426 metres high the _Hoheneck_, the ruins of the old castles of _Kientzheim_, _Rappoltstein, Hoh-_ (High) _K[oe]nigsburg_, _Ortenburg_, _Bernstein_, _Frankenburg_ and the summits of the _Bressoir_ and _Ungersberg_. Looking in the direction of Saint-Thomas' church, at one glance the eye overlooks the country of the old _Hohenburg_, so picturesque and so rich in monuments and historical associations: the castle of _Landsberg_, the rock of the _Maennelstein_, the convent of _Sainte-Odile_, behind which rises the level ground of the _Champ-du-Feu_; further on to the right, are the ruins of _Girbaden_, the peaks of the _Donon_ and _Schneeberg_. Here the mountains are by degrees lost from sight in the distance; on the horizon one may however distinguish the towers of the castles of _Geroldseck_ and _Hoh-_ (High) _Barr_, in the vicinity of Zabern; then nothing more is seen but meadows, forests, fields, from the centre of which you see now and then the modest church-steeples of the numerous villages that cover the fine plain of Alsacia. On the North side stands a tower of an octangular form, supporting the spire. This tower consists, as it were, but of strong buttresses adorned with small columns and statues, and having large apertures in which very high windows are set and take nearly the whole breadth on the four sides, where they are. Among the statues that face the platform, one must be noticed as being, according to tradition, that of Erwin of Steinbach. In the interior of this tower are the bells that strike the hours, that which is called the gates' bell (_Thorglocke_)[1] and also a clock made in 1786 by two clockmakers of Strasburg, Maybaum father and son. An inscription over the door leading to the platform recalls to mind the earthquake of 1728, so violent that the water was raised from the reservoirs and thrown to a distance of eighteen feet[2]. In front of the four principal sides of the octagon tower are turrets with winding stairs, and consisting but of a series of windows that rise in a spiral form. These elegant turrets seem hardly to rest on any thing; besides the gallery that covers them, they communicate with the principal tower but by means of flat stones that serve as an entrance into a gallery of the interior of the arch-roof, and which lie at a height of almost thirty metres. According to the old drawings, these turrets should have been surmounted by pyramidal spires. They terminate in a gallery that surrounds the tower, from whence one enjoys a most admirable view. It is from that spot that rises the spire (_fleche_), which is an octangular pyramid of an extraordinary boldness, offering to the astonished gazer nothing of a massive construction. Six successive tiers of little turrets are thus pyramidically placed one above the other[3]. Eight winding stair-cases, narrow and of rich open carvings, lead the