Excerpt from The Rhine From Rotterdam to Constance: Handbook for Travellers From Bale to Bingen the valley of the Rhine is lake-like and filled with comparatively recent deposits but at the latter place it suddenly changes its character, and becomes so narrow that room is barely left for the high-roads and railways which traverse it. The river flows swiftly between almost perpendicular rocks of consider able height, intersected here and there by ravines. Towards Coblenz the valley gradually expands the hills become less abrupt, and the rocks disappear. From Coblenz to Andernach a broad basin extends on both sides of the stream which at the latter again enters a rocky defile. Near Bonn the river gradually widens, and the 'seven Mountains appear, forming the grand closing scene of the picturesque portion of the Rhine. This chain of mountains, in diminished pro portions, accompanies the Rhine ou its right bank as far as Cologne, Dusseldorf, and nearly to Duisburg. Below the mouth of the Ruhr the country is uniformly fiat. Between Bingen and Bonn the Rhine Valley thus intersects an extensive range of high land, consisting of upheaved and contorted strata of slatey-g-rauwacke and quartzose-rock, one of the oldest formations in which fossils are found. Since the fossili ferous strata have been more accurately classified, the Rhenish slate mountains are believed to hold the second place according to age among these formations, belonging to what is termed by Sir Roderick Murchison the Devonian System, while the oldest for mation of this class is known as the Silurian. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.