BERCHTESGADEN, or Berchtolsgaden, a small town, beautifully situated on the south-eastern confines of Bavaria, and long celebrated for its extensive mines of rock-salt, which were worked as early as 1174. Fresh water is brought into the mine, and, acting upon the salt rock, becomes brine. It is then run off in pipes to a reservoir in the vicinity; whence, by two hydraulic machines, it is raised 1500 feet, and conducted to Traunstein and Rosenheim, about forty miles farther inland. The town contains three old churches, and some good houses. Its inhabitants, amounting to 1760, are principally employed in the mines and in the manufacture of salt, while others are engaged in making those toys and other small articles of wood, horn, and ivory, for which the place has long been famous. The vicinity comprehends the most picturesque portion of Bavaria. The district of Berchtesgaden was formerly an independent spiritual principality, founded in 1109, and secularized in 1803. The abbey is now a royal castle, and in the neighbourhood a huntinglodge was built by King Max II. in 1852.