itable portions of the land assume an historical
dignity and generate stirring historical events out of all proportion to
their size and population. Their content is ethical rather than
economic. They attract to their fastnesses the vigorous souls protesting
against conquest or oppression, and then by their natural protection
sustain and nourish the spirit of liberty. It was the water-soaked
lowlands of the Rhine that enabled the early Batavians,[742] Ditmarscher
and Frieslanders to assert and to maintain their independence, generated
the love of Independence among the Dutch and helped them defend their
liberty against the Spanish[743] and French. So the Fenland of England
was the center of resistance to the despotism of King John, who
therefore fixed his headquarters for the suppression of the revolt at
Lincoln and his military depot at Lynn. Later in the conflict of the
barons with Henry III, Simon de Montfort and other disaffected nobles
entrenched themselves in the islands of Ely and Axholm, till the
Provisions of Oxford in 1267 secured them some degree of constitutional
rights.[744] Four centuries later the same spirit sent many Fenlanders
to the support of Cromwell.

[Sidenote: Economic and political importance of lakes.]

A river that spreads out into the indeterminate earthform of a marsh is
an effective barrier; but one that gathers waters into a natural basin
and forms a lake retains the uniting power of a navigable stream and
also, by the extension of its area and elimination of its current,
approaches the nature of an enclosed sea. Mountain rivers, characterized
by small volume and turbulent flow, first become navigable when they
check their impetuosity and gather their store of water in some lake
basin. The whole course of the upper Rhone, from its glacier source on
the slope of Mount Furca to its confluence with the Saone at Lyon, is
unfit for navigation, except where it lingers in Lake Geneva. The same
thing is true of the Reuss in Lake Lucerne, the upper Rhine in Lake
Constance, the Aare in Thun and Brienze, and the Linth in Lake Zurich.
Hence such torrent-fed lakes assume economic and political importance in
mountainous regions, owing to the paucity of navigable waterways. The
lakes of Alpine Switzerland and Italy and of Highland Scotland form so
many centers of intercourse and exchange. Even such small bodies of
water as the Alpine lakes have therefore become goals of expansion, so
that we find the sh