Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/537

RHINE 519 45 miles unites with the Hinter Khein at Reichenau. As far as Ilanz the Vorder Rhein is simply a mountain torrent, descending 1200 feet in the first 12 miles of its course. At Disentis, where it is joined by the Medelser Rhein, it is 15 feet wide, and at Ilanz it is about thrice as large. The Hinter Rhein has its cradle in the Rheinwald glacier, near the St Bernardino Pass, 7270 feet above the sea and 40 miles south of Reichenau. The Vorder Rhein con- tributes the greater volume of water to the joint stream, but the Hinter Rhein belongs to a more developed system. Beyond Reichenau the united stream, 150 feet in width, bears the name of Rhine without any qualifying epithet. It is now navigable for rafts, and small boats begin to be seen a little further on, at Coire, where it turns to the north. On reaching the Lake of Constance the Rhine deposits the debris that it has brought down from its mountain sources, and the stream that emerges from the west end of the Untersee is of a clear deep green colour. Between the Lake of Constance and Basel the Rhine flows towards the west and practically forms the boundary be- tween Germany and Switzerland. At Schaffhausen, in penetrating the barrier of the Jura, it forms the imposing falls of the Rhine, where it is precipitated over a ledge of rock in three leaps 50 or 60 feet in height. Near Lauter- burg, where the river encounters the gneiss of the Black Forest, is a series of formidable cataracts, and about 15 miles lower down are the rapids of Rheinfelden. At Basel, which it reaches after a tortuous course of 250 miles, though it is only about a third of that distance from its source in a direct line, the Rhine turns once more to the north and enters Germany. Its breadth here is between 550 and 600 feet, while its surface now lies not more than 800 feet above the sea, showing that the river has made a descent of 6900 feet by the time it has traversed a third of its course. From Basel to Mainz the Rhine flows through a wide and shallow valley, bordered on the east and west by the parallel ranges of the Black Forest and the Vosges. Its banks are low and flat, and numerous islands occur. The tendency to divide into parallel branches has been curbed in the interests of navigation, and many windings have been cut off by leading the water into straight and regular channels. At Mannheim the river is nearly 1500 feet in width, and at Mainz, where it is diverted to the west by the barrier of the Taunus, it is still wider. It follows the new direction for about 20 miles, but at Bingen it again turns to the north and begins a completely new stage of its career, entering a narrow valley in which the enclosing rocky hills abut so closely on the river as often barely to leave room for the road and railway on the bank. This is the most beautiful part of the whole course of the river, abounding in the ruined castles, the romantic crags, the sunny vineyards, and the picturesque lateral ravines that have combined to make the Rhine so favourite a resort of lovers of natural beauty. At Coblentz the valley widens and the river is 1200 feet broad, but the hills close in again at Andernach, and this ravine-like part of its course cannot be considered as ending till below the Seven Mountains, where the river once more expands to a width of 1300-1600 feet. Beyond Bonn and Cologne the banks are again flat and the valley wide, though the hills on the right bank do not completely disappear till the neighbour- hood of Diisseldorf. Further on the country traversed by the Rhine is perfectly level, and the current becomes more and more sluggish. On entering Holland, which it does below Emmerich, its course is again deflected to the west. Within Holland the banks are so low as to require at places to be protected by embankments against inundations. The river now loses its individuality in a number of separate branches, and the name of Rhine has often arbi- trarily clung to the smaller arm after a bifurcation. Almost immediately after entering Holland the stream divides into two arms, the larger of which, carrying off about two-thirds of the water, diverges to the west, is called the Waal, and soon unites with the Maas. The smaller branch to the right retains the name of Rhine and sends off another arm, called the Yssel, to the Zuyder Zee. The Rhine now pursues a westerly course almost parallel with that of the Waal. At Wijk another bifurcation takes place, the broad Lek diverging on the left to join the Maas, while the "Kromme Rhijn" to the right is com- paratively insignificant. Beyond Utrecht, where it is again diminished by the divergence of the Vecht to the Zuyder Zee, the river under the name of the " Oude Rhijn " or Old Rhine degenerates into a sluggish and almost stagnant stream, which requires the artificial aid of a canal and sluices in finding its way to the sea. In Roman times the Rhine at this part of its course seems to have been a full and flowing river, but by the 9th century it had lost itself in the sands of Katwijk, and it was not until the beginning of the 19th century that its way to the sea was re-opened. Though the name Rhine thus at last attaches to a very insignificant stream, the entire district between the Waal on one side and the Yssel on the other, the Insula Batavorum of Caesar, in reality belongs to the delta of the famous river. 1 See vol. xii. Plate I. The Rhine is said to receive, directly or indirectly, the waters of upwards of 12,000 tributaries of all sizes. Leaving out of account the innumerable glacier streams that swell its volume above the Lake of Constance, the most important affluents to its upper course are the Wutach, the Alb, and the Wiese, descending on the right from the Black Forest, and the Aar, draining several Swiss cantons on the left. In the Upper Rhenish basin, between Basel and Mainz, the tributaries, though numerous, are mostly short and unimportant. The 111 and the Nahe on the left and the Neckar and the Main on the right are, however, notable exceptions. Before joining the Rhine the 111 runs almost parallel with it and at no great distance for upwards of 50 miles. In the narrow part of the valley, between Bingen and Cologne, the Rhine receives the waters of the Lahn and the Sieg on the right, and those of the Moselle 2 (bringing with it the Saar) and the Ahr on the left. Still lower down, but before the Dutch frontier is reached, come the Ruhr and the Lippe on the right, and the Erft on the left. The numerous arms into which the Rhine branches in Holland have already been noticed. The Rhine connects the highest Alps with the mud banks of Holland, and touches in its course the most varied geological periods ; but the river valley itself is, geologically speaking, of comparatively recent formation. Rising amid the ancient gneiss rocks of the St Gotthard, the Rhine finds its way down to the Lake of Constance between layers of Triassic and Jurassic formation ; and between that lake and Basel it penetrates the chalk barrier of the Jura. The upper Rhenish valley is evidently the bed of an ancient lake, the shores of which were formed by the gneiss and granite of the Black Forest on the one side and the granite and sandstone of the Vosges on the other. Within the valley all the alluvial 1 The nomenclature of the Rhine branches in the Netherlands is, according to Mr J. Dirks, a singular but historic system, by which the rivers are chopped up, as it were, into longitudinal pieces. 2 The Moselle rises in France, in the canton of Ramonchamp, at a height of 2379 feet above the sea, on the west side of the Vosges. Its length is 315 miles (of which 190 are in France), but the direct line from source to confluence is only about 170 miles. At Spinal (1040 feet) the Moselle passes out of the rocky mountain-glen where its course has hitherto been. It enters the Lorraine plateau, but the sides of the valley still remain high and steep. Below Metz (550 feet) the bottom-lands spread out to a considerable width ; iu the section between Sierck and Coblentz the hills again close in upon the river. Rafts can generally be floated from Arches down to Frouard, and there, by the junction of the Meurthe (itself navigable, though with difficulty, from Nancy), the depth becomes sufficient for boats. Since 1840 steamboats have plied between Troves and Coblentz.