NORDHAUSEN  , a

town of Germany, in the province of Prussian Saxony . It is situated on the Zorge at the south base of the Harz Mountains, and at the west end of the Goldene Aue (Golden Plain), a fruitful valley watered by the Helme, 6o m. by rail W. of Halle, on the main line to Frankfort-on-Main and Cassel, and at the junction of railways to Erfurt and Blankenheim . Pop . (1885) 27,083; (1905) 29,882 . It is built partly on the slope of the mountains and partly on the plain, and the upper and lower parts of the town are connected by flights of steps . Among its eight churches the most noteworthy are the Roman Catholic cathedral, late Gothic with a Romanesque crypt, and the Protestant church of St Blasius, containing two pictures by Lucas Cranach . Near the medieval town hall stands a Roland's column, the ancient symbol of free commercial inter-course and civic liberty . The town has a museum of antiquities and various public monuments, notably a fountain by Ernst Rietschel in the corn market, and another to Luther in the market square . There are statues of the emperor Frederick III. and of Prince Bismarck . The chief importance of the place arises from its distilleries, which annually yield about ro,000,000 gallons of " Korn Schnapps," a spirit somewhat akin to whisky . The breweries are also important and there are manufactures of leather, tobacco and cigars, cotton, linen goods, carpets, chicory, malt and chemicals . Nordhausen is sometimes called the Cincinnati of Germany on account of its extensive export trade in pork, corned beef, ham and sausages .

There is also a large trade in corn . Nordhausen is one of the

oldest towns in North Germany . It possessed a royal palace in 874 and a convent was founded here in 962 . It was destroyed by Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, in 118o, but was soon rebuilt and was made a free imperial town in 1253 . In this and the following century several diets and other assemblies were held here . The protector (Vogt) of the town was the elector of Saxony and later for a few years (1702—1715) the elector of Brandenburg . Nordhausen accepted the reformed doctrines in 1522 . It was annexed by Prussia in 1803 and againin 1815, having in the meantime belonged to the kingdom of Westphalia . See Forstemann; Urkundliche Geschichte der Stadt Nordhausen bis sago (Nordhausen, 1828—1840) and Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte der Stadt Nordhausen (Nordhausen, 1855) ; Lesser, Historische Nachrichten von Nordhausen, edited by Forstemann (Nordhausen 186o) ; J . Schmidt, Pau- and Kunstdenkmaler der Stadt Nordhausen (Halle, 1886) ; T . Eckart, Gedenkblatter aus der Geschichte der ehemaligen freien Reichsstadt Nordhausen (Leipzig, 1895) ; Heine, Nordhausen and Preussen (Nordhausen, 1902); and Girschner, Lokalfilhrer fur Nordhausen and Umgebung (1891) .