GUMBINNEN  , a

town of Germany, in the Prussian province of East Prussia, on the Pissa, an affluent of the Pregel, 22 M. by rail S.W. of Eydtkuhnen on the line to Konigsberg . Pop . (1905), 14,194 . The surrounding country is pleasant and fruitful, and the town has spacious and regular streets shaded by linden trees . It has a Roman Catholic and three Evangelical churches, a synagogue, a gymnasium, two public schools, a public library, a hospital and an infirmary . In the market square there is a statue of the king of Prussia Frederick William I., who in 1724 raised Gumbinnen to the rank of a town, and'in 1732 brought to it a number of persons who had been driven from Salzburg by religious persecution . On the bridge over the Pissa a monument has been erected to the soldiers from the neighbourhood who fell in the Franco-German war of 1870-71 . Iron founding and the manufacture of machinery, wool, cotton, and linen weaving, stocking-making, tanning, brewing and distilling are the principal industries . There are horse and cattle markets, and some trade in corn and linseed . See J . Schneider, Aus Gumbinnens Vergangenheit (Gumbinnen, 1904) .