Cracow. There are forty churches in the city, with twenty-three convents of monks and nuns. In the Ringplatz stand the old Gothic cloth booths and the ancient Rathhaus with a fine tower. A relic of the old wall remains in the Floriane gate on the esplanade. The university of Cracow, founded by Casimir the Great, and carried out by Jagellon in 1401, has sixty-nine professors and about 450 students, and possesses a library of 140,000 volumes and numerous MSS. Attached to it are an observatory, botanic gardens, natural, historical, and medical museums, a laboratory, and medical schools. Cloth, leather, and agricultural implements are manufactured to some extent in Cracow, and a busy traffic in grain, wood, salt, wine, linen, and pigs is carried on by the Vistula. In the neighbourhood thero are coal and zinc mines. Besides a bridge over the old Vistula, the Franz Joseph Bridge on five stone piers and the railway bridge cross the river to the villages of Podgorze and Stawisko on the opposite bank. Three miles northwest of Cracow a huge mound 125 feet in height was raised in 1824 to the memory of Kosciusko, and this has now been utilized as the site of a fort. The village of Krzezowice in this direction is a favourite resort of Cracow people, and has a fine castle, a Gothic church, sulphur baths, and iron and zinc mines. Eight miles south-east of Cracow, united to it by a branch railway, are the village and famous salt-mines of Wieliczka; about 1000 miners are constantly employed here, and the annual yield of salt amounts to more than a million cwts. Population (1869), 49,835, including about 10,000 Jews.

Cracow takes its name from the Polish Prince Krak or Krakus, and dates from about the year 700. Perhaps no city has suffered greater vicissitudes. It was taken in 1039 by the Bohemians, in 1241 by the Mongols, by the Swedes in 1655 and in 1702, and by the Russians in 1768. It remained the capital of Poland from 1320 till 1609, when the seat of government was transferred to Warsaw, but the kings of Poland were crowned in it till 1764. On the third partition of Poland in 1795 Austria took possession of this portion; but in his campaign of 1809 Napoleon wrested it from that power, and incorporated it with the duchy of Warsaw, which was placed under the rule of Saxony. In the campaign of 1812 the Emperor Alexander made himself master of this and the other territory which formed the duchy of Warsaw. At the general settlement of the affairs of Europe by the great powers in 1815, it was agreed that Cracow and the adjoining territory should be formed into a free state; and, by the General Treaty of Congress signed at Vienna in 1815, “the town of Cracow, with its territory, is declared to be for ever a free, independent, and strictly neutral city, under the protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia.’’ In February 1846, however, an insurrection broke out in Cracow, apparently a ramification of a widely-spread conspiracy throughout Poland. The senate and the other authorities of Cracow were unable to subdue the rebels or to maintain order, and, at their request, the city was occupied by a corps of Austrian troops for the protection of the inhabitants. The three powers, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, made this a pretext for extinguishing this independent state; and having established a conference at Vienna (November 1846) the three courts after due deliberation, contrary to the assurance previously given, and in opposition to the expressed views of the British and French Governments, came to the conclusion to extinguish the state of Cracow and to incorporate it with the dominions of Austria.