the formation of powers holding lands both within and without the Empire. ♦Austria. | Sweden. | Union of Brandenburg and Prussia.♦ Thus, beside the union of the Hungarian kingdom with the Austrian archduchy, the King of Sweden now held lands as a prince of the Empire, and the same result was brought about in another way by the union of the Electorate of Brandenburg with the Duchy of Prussia. ♦Rivalry of Prussia and Austria.♦ This, and other accessions of territory, now made Brandenburg as distinctly the first power of northern Germany as Austria was of southern Germany, and in the eighteenth century the rivalry of these two powers becomes the chief centre, not only of German but of European politics. ♦Hannover and Great Britain, 1715.♦ The union of the Electorate of Hannover under the same sovereign with the kingdom of Great Britain further increased the number of princes ruling both within Germany and without it. ♦Dissolution of the Kingdom, 1806.♦ Lastly, the wars of the latter years of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century led to the dissolution alike of the German kingdom and of the Roman Empire. ♦The German Confederation, 1815-1866.♦ Then, after a time of confusion and foreign occupation, comes the formation of a Confederation with boundaries nearly the same as the later boundaries of the kingdom. But the Confederation now appears as something quite subordinate to its two leading members. ♦Austria and Prussia greater than the Confederation.♦ Germany, as such, no longer counts as a great European power, but Prussia and Austria, the two chief holders at once of German and of non-German lands, stand forth among the chief bearers of European rank. ♦The new Confederation and Empire, 1866-1870.♦ Lastly, the changes of our own day have given us an Imperial Germany with geographical boundaries altogether new, a Germany from which the south-eastern German lands are cut off, while the Polish and other non-German possessions of Prussia to the north-east have become an integral part of the new Empire. The task of the geographer is thereby greatly simplified. Down to the last changes, one of his greatest difficulties is to make his map show with any clearness what was the extent of the German Kingdom or Confederation, and at the same time what was the extent of the dominions of those princes who held lands both in Germany and out of it. By the last arrangements this difficulty at least is altogether taken away. * * * * * ♦Germany under the Saxon and Frankish Empire.♦