RHINE, rin, a river of Germany. It is one of the most picturesque rivers in the world, and its natural beauty is heightened by the his toric and legendary traditions with which its name is associated. Its direct course is 460 miles long and its indirect course about, miles ; the area of its basin is about 86,e01 square miles. It is formed in the Swiss canton Grisons by three main streams called the Vorder, Mittel and Hinter Rhein, or the Upper, Middle and Lower Rhine. The Vorder Rhein rises in the small Toma Lake (7,690 feet high), lying to the northeast of the Saint Gothard, and is augmented by two streams which unite with it near Chiamut (5,380 feet), The Mittel Rhein issues from a .small lake west of the Lukmanierberg,, traverses the Medelserthal, and joins the Vorder Rhein at Disentis, from which point the united stream is called Vorder Rhein. It takes an easterly direction, and at Reichenau unites with the Hinter Rhein, which issues from the Rheinwald Glacier, in the Adula group, and has a course of about 70 miles through the Rheinwaldthal before reaching Reichenau. Here the stream takes the name of Rhine, has a width of 130 to 140 feet, and admits of floating. The Rhine first becomes properly navigable at Coire after receiving the Plessur. It now turns north, and shortly after being augmented by the 'Landquart quits the Grisons, forms the boundary between the can ton of Saint Gall on the left and Leichtenstein and Voralberg on the right, receiving the from the latter, and enters the Bodensee or Lake of Constance, continued by the Untersee. On issuing from the Untersee it flows west, separating Switzerland from the grand-duchy of Baden, and continues its course to Schaff hausen and Basel, receiving, as it proceeds, on the left of the Goldach, Thur, Thoss, Glatt and Aar, and on the right the Wutach and Alb, mountain streams of the Black Forest. At Schaffhausen the river forms perhaps the grandest' waterfalls in Europe. At Basel it again begins to flow north, when it separates the German territory of Alsace from Baden, forms the boundary between the latter and the Bavarian palatinate, flows thereafter through the grand-duchy of Hesse, forms the boundary first between it and Nassau, and then between Nassau and the Prussian Rhenish province, till it wholly enters the latter at Coblentz. Below
Emmerich it enters the Dutch province of Gelderland, and shortly after divides into two branches, a south and a north. The south, called the Waal (anciently Vahalis), carries off two-thirds of its water, and joins the Maas 01 Meuse at Woudrichem. The north branch, after making several windings in its course to Arnhem, but still retaining the name of Rhine (Rijn), divides at Westervoort, before reach ing Arnheim, into two branches. Of these the right proceeds as the New Yssel, in the bed of the canal which Drusus dug to connect the Rhine with the Old Yssel, till it reaches Does burg, where the New and Old Yssel unite to pour their accumulated waters into the Zuyder Zee. The left arm proceeds,,under the name of Rhine, in a course nearly parallel to the Waal, Wageningen and Rhenen to Wijk-by-Vurstede, where it again bifurcates, sending a very feeble branch, under the name of the Crooked Rhine, to Utrecht, where, by the canal of Vaart, it communicates with the much larger branch, called the Lec.k, and flow ing past Vianeh and Schoonhofen unites with the ' Maas aboVe Grimpen-op-de-Lek. , The CrpOked Rhine 'becomes )ittle better than a ditch; on leaving Utrecht it proceeds toward Leyden, and at the beginning of the 19th cen tury was lost in the sand beyond the Katwijk aan-den-Rijn. At an earlier period it had here found an outlet into the ocean.; and in more recent times, after surmounting many diffi culties, the lost water of the Rhine has been collected in a canal, and by the aid of three sluices the outlet has again been established. The breadth of the Rhine and the character of its channel differ much at different parts of its long course. Its breadth at Basel is 750 feet; between Strassburg and Spires from 1,000 to 1,200 feet; at Mainz 1,500 to 1,700 feet, and at Schenkenschanz, where it enters the Nether lands, 2,150 feet. Its depth varies from 5 to 28 feet, and at Dusseldorf amounts even to 50 feet. The Rhine abounds with fish, including salmon and salmon-trout, but more especially sturgeon, lampreys and carp. Wild fowl also abound on its banks and countless islands. Some gold is contained among the sands brought down into it from the mountains of Switzerland and of the Black Forest.