ough the Lake of Constance from Grisons, the Rhine forms a
boundary between Switzerland and the German States. From Basel to
Mayence it winds its way through the ancient bed of the glaciers; and
from Mayence to Bingen it flows through rocky walls to Bonn, where it
enters the great alluvial plain through which it makes its way to the
ocean.

The valley of the Rhine has been called the artery which gives life to
all Prussia. The reason is obvious to any who have the slightest
acquaintance with the region. The commerce of the Rhine is ceaseless;
day and night, up and down stream, the procession of steamboats,
canal-boats, floats, and barges is almost constant.

From the dawn of history both banks of the Lower Rhine had belonged to
Germany, and they are still inhabited by Germans. Ten centuries or more
have elapsed since the boundaries of the eastern and western kingdom of
the Franks were fixed at Verdun, and, though the French frontier had
frequently advanced toward Germany, and at certain points had actually
reached the Rhine, no claim was advanced to that portion which was yet
German until the cry of "To the Rhine" resounded through the French
provinces in 1870-71.

Of course the obvious argument of the French was, and is, an apparently
justifiable pretension to extend France to its natural frontier, but
this is ill-founded on precedent, and monstrous as well. Against it we
have in history that a _river-bed_ is not a _natural_ delimitation of
territorial domination.

The Cisalpine Gauls extended their powers across the river Po, and the
United States of America first claimed Oregon by virtue of the
interpretation that a boundary at a river should give control of both
banks, though how far beyond the other bank they might claim is
unestablished.

Until the Lake of Constance is reached, with its fine city of the same
name at its westerly end, there are no cities, towns, or villages in
which one would expect to find ecclesiastical monuments of the first
rank; indeed, one may say that there are none.

But the whole Rhine watershed, that great thoroughfare through which
Christianizing and civilizing influences made their way northward from
Italy, is replete with memorials of one sort or another of those
significant events of history which were made doubly impressive and
far-reaching by reason of their religious aspect.

The three tiny sources of the Rhine are born in the canton of Grisons,
and are known as the Vorder