CASSEL, a walled town of Western Germany, capital of the electorate of Hesse-Cassel and of the province of Lower Hesse, stands on the river Fulda, 124 miles N.E. of Frankfurt-on-the-Main, with which it has lately been connected by railway. N. Lat. 51. 19. E. Long. 9. 35. Pop. (1846) 32,516. The town is pleasantly situated on both sides of the Fulda, which here is navigable. The old town and upper new town, with the Wilhelmshöhe and Frankfurt suburbs, lie on its left or western side; and the lower new town, with the Leipzig suburb, on the east bank. The streets of the old town, which lies low, are narrow, crooked, and dirty; but the upper or French new town (so called from having been laid out by French refugees) is one of the handsomest towns of Germany. The Elector's palace, an edifice nowise remarkable, stands in the Friedrichsplatz, the largest square in any German town, being 1000 feet in length, and 450 in breadth. In its centre there is a marble statue of the Elector Frederick II., by whom the town was much improved and embellished. Its finest street is Königsstrasse, 5100 feet in length, and 60 in breadth. The handsome building in Cassel is the museum, which contains a library of 90,000 volumes, with collections of natural history, antiquities, coins, physical and mathematical instruments, &c. St Martin's church, a Gothic edifice, contains the burial-vault of the electoral family. The other chief buildings are the town-hall; the Bellevue palace; the unfinished palace of the Cattenburgh, now overgrown with weeds; the observatory; picture-gallery, with portraits by Rembrandt, Vandyk, Rubens, and others; the arsenal, barracks, mint, opera-house, electoral stables, and riding-school; besides several churches, schools, and hospitals. Cassel has numerous literary and scientific institutions. The manufactures, which are on a small scale, are almost exclusively confined to the wants of the state. The principal of these are, cotton, silk, and woollen goods, leather, earthenware, jewellery, chemicals, tobacco, &c. &c. During the brief reign of Jerome Bonaparte, Cassel was the capital of the kingdom of Westphalia. From the Wilhelmshöhe gate an avenue of lime-trees 3 miles in length leads to the summer palace of the elector, situated in the midst of beautiful gardens, adorned with statues and water-works, which have acquired for it the name of the German Versailles.