1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reichenhall

REICHENHALL, a town and watering-place in the kingdom of Bavaria, finely situated in an amphitheatre of lofty mountains, on the river Saalach, 1570 ft. above sea-level, 9 m. S.W. of Salzburg. Pop. (1900) 4927, excluding visitors. Reichenhall possesses several copious saline springs, producing about 8500 tons of salt per annum. The water of some of the springs, the sources of which are 50 ft. below the surface, is so strongly saturated with salt (up to 24%) that it is at once conducted to the boiling houses, while that of the others is first submitted to a process of evaporation. Reichenhall is the centre of the four chief Bavarian salt-works, which are connected with each other by brine conduits having an aggregate length of 60 m. The surplus brine of Berchtesgaden is conducted to Reichenhall, and thence, in increased volume, to Traunstein and Rosenhelm, which possess larger supplies of timber for use as fuel in the process of boiling. Since 1846 Reichenhallhas become one of the most fashionable spas and climatic health resorts in Germany, and it is now visited annually by about ten thousand patients, besides many thousand passing tourists. The saline springs are used both for drinking and batliing, and are said to be emcacious in scrofula and incipient tuberculosis. The brine springs of Reichenhall are mentioned in a document of the 8th century and were perhaps known to the Romans; but almost all trace of antiquity of the town was destroyed by a conflagration in 1834. The brine conduit to Traunstein dates from 1618. The environs abound in numerous charming Alpine excursions.

See G. von Liebig, Reichenhall, sein Klima und seine Heilmittel (6th ed., Reichenhall, 1889); and Goldschmidt, Der Aura/rt Bad Reichenhall und seine Umgebung (Vienna, 1892).