BERCHTESGADEN  , a

town of Germany, beautifully situated on the south-eastern confines of the kingdom of Bavaria, 1700 ft. above the sea on the southern declivity of the Untersberg, 6 m . S.S.E. from Reichenhall by rail . Pop . (woo) 10,046 . It is celebrated for its extensive mines of rock-salt, which were worked as early as 1174 . The town contains three old churches, of which the early Gothic abbey church with its Romanesque cloister is most notable, and some good houses . Apart from the salt-mines, its industries include toys and other small articles of wood, horn and ivory, for which the place has long been famous . The district of Berchtesgaden was formerly an independei t spiritual principality, founded in 'too and secularized in 1803 . The abbey is now a royal castle, and in the neighbour-hood a hunting-lodge was built by King Maximilian II. in 1852 .