(the Albus of the ancients), a large river of Europe, in Germany, which rises in the Riesen Gebirge, or Giant's Mountains, between Silesia and Bohemia, and is known at its source by the Slavonic name of the Labbe. Its principal sources are the White Fountain, at the base of the Schnee-Kuppe, and the eleven fountains of the Elbe in the Navarian meadow. To the number of streams which descend into Bohemia from the neighbouring mountains it owes its early increase. After its junction with the river Eger, it becomes navigable, and, entering Saxony, passes successively Dresden, Meissen, Torgau, and Wittenberg. In its course, which is northerly, it receives two other rivers, the Muldaun and the Saale; and running through the territory of Magdeburg and the duchies of Mecklenburg and Launburg, it discharges itself at last into the German Ocean, about seventy miles below Hamburg, after a course of 500 miles. The Elbe has always been an important river in a military point of view. With respect to commerce, it gives to Hamburg its command of the navigation far into the interior, although the voyage is difficult, on account of the numerous sand-banks, and the occasional violence of the wind. It communicates with the Havel by the canal of Plauen, in the territory of Magdeburg; and at Hamburg it is connected in like manner with the Trave at Lubeck; it is also joined to the Weser by a canal running between Vegesak and Stade. Besides the natural difficulties of navigating this noble stream, the circumstance of its traversing so many different kingdoms and petty states has given rise to another, namely, the endless tolls imposed by the princes of the various sovereignties through which it passes. The congress of Vienna intended to rectify this evil; but notwithstanding the regulations introduced, the navigation of the German rivers cannot yet be called free.