A large number of rivulets, issuing from Swiss glaciers, unite to form the upper Rhine; but two are recognized as the principal sources—the Nearer and the Farther Rhine. The former emerges on the northeast slope of the St. Gotthard pass (seven thousand six hundred and ninety feet above sea-level), the other side of which is the cradle of the Rhone; the Farther Rhine has its origin on the flank of the Rheinwaldhorn, seven thousand two hundred and seventy feet high, not far from the Pass of Bernardino. The two mountain torrents meet at Reichenau, six miles southwest of Coire (Chur), in the Grisons canton, Switzerland, after they have descended the Nearer Rhine five thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven feet in twenty-eight miles, the Farther Rhine five thousand three hundred and forty-seven feet in twenty-seven miles.
LAKE CONSTANCE AND THE
FALLS OF SCHAFFHAUSEN
After plowing its way north for forty-five miles between Switzerland and Austrian Vorarlberg, the river enters the Lake of Constance, soon after leaving which, its water a deep transparent green, it plunges down the falls of Schaffhausen, nearly seventy feet, in three leaps, and flows westward to Basel, separating Baden from Switzerland. In this stretch the river (four hundred and ninety feet wide), receives from the left the waters of the Aar. At Basel (seven hundred and forty-two feet), now two hundred and twenty-five yards wide, it wheels round to the north, and traversing an open shallow valley that separates Alsace and the Bavarian Palatinate from Baden, reaches Mainz, split into many side arms and studded with green islands. Navigation begins at Basel.
THE MIDDLE RHINE FROM BASEL
TO COLOGNE
Of the numerous affluents here the largest are the navigable Neckar and the Main from the right, and the navigable Ill from the left. A little below Mainz, the Rhine (six hundred and eighty-five yards wide) is turned west by the Taunus range; but at Bingen it forces a passage through, and pursues a northwesterly direction across Rhenish Prussia, past Coblenz, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Ruhrort, and Wesel as far as the Dutch frontier; here it is one thousand and eighty-five yards wide and thirty-six feet above sea-level.
THE FAMOUS STRETCH FROM
BINGEN TO BONN
The first half of this portion of the river from Bingen to Bonn is the Rhine of song and legend, the Rhine of romance, the Rhine of German patriotism. Its banks are clothed with vineyards that yield wine esteemed the world over; the rugged and fantastic crags that hem in its channel are crowned by ruined castles; the treasure of the Nibelungs rests at the bottom of the river (higher up, at Worms); the Bingerloch and the Mouse Tower of Bishop Hatto, the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, the rock of the siren Lorelei, the commanding statue of Germania (the trophy of German victory in 1870), and innumerable other features lend interest to this, the middle course of “Father Rhine.” Between Bingen and Bonn the steep rocky walls that fence in the river approach so close that road and railway have to find their way through tunnels. The Nahe enters the Rhine at Bingen, the Moselle at Coblenz; from the right side the Lahn enters above Coblenz. Gigantic rafts are floated down from the Black Forest to Dordrecht in Holland. Below Bonn the Rhine is joined by the Sieg, Wupper, Ruhr, and Lippe from the right.
PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE RIVER RHINE, THE MOST HISTORIC RIVER IN THE WORLD
Starting from the important city of Cologne and ascending the river. These pages and those immediately following give an almost photographic panorama of the entire Rhine valley as far as Mainz—the course of the river, its confluents, bridges, cities, villages, castles, fortresses, historic ruins and museums, and the general topography of the region through which river flows.