OF BERLIN CITY.

In the year (guessed to be) 1240, one Ascanier Markgraf "fortifies
Berlin;" that is, first makes Berlin a German BURG and inhabited
outpost in those parts:--the very name, some think, means "Little
Rampart" (WEHRlin), built there, on the banks of the Spree,
against the Wends, and peopled with Dutch; of which latter fact,
it seems, the old dialect of the place yields traces. [Nicolai,
Beschreibung der Koniglichen Residenzstadte Berlin und
Potsdam (Berlin, 1786), i. pp. 16, 17 of
"Einleitung." Nicolai rejects the WEHRLIN etymology; admits that
the name was evidently appellative, not proper, "The Berlin,"
"To the Berlin;" finds in the world two objects, one of them at
Halle, still called "The Berlin;" and thinks it must have meant
(in some language of extinct mortals) "Wild Pasture-ground,"--
"The SCRUBS," as we should call it.--Possible; perhaps likely.]
How it rose afterwards to be chosen for Metropolis, one cannot
say, except that it had a central situation for the now widened
principalities of Brandenburg: the place otherwise is sandy by
nature, sand and swamp the constituents of it; and stands on a
sluggish river the color of oil. Wendish fishermen had founded
some first nucleus of it long before; and called their fishing-
hamlet COLN, which is said to be the general Wendish title for
places FOUNDED ON PILES, a needful method where your basis is
swamp. At all events, "Coln" still designates the oldest quarter
in Berlin; and "Coln on the Spree" (Cologne, or Coln on the Rhine,
being very different) continued, almost to modern times, to be the
Official name of the Capital.