VIII RIVERS AND LAKES 303 



have deserted Calcutta. At this juncture the 

 Eastern Bengal Railway Company intervened. 

 They were carrying their works along the 

 ridge, and they have, for the moment at least, 

 stopped the oscillation in this direction." 



This has affected many of the other tribu- 

 taries of the Ganges, so that the survey made 

 by Rennell in 1780-90 is no longer any evi- 

 dence as to the present course of the rivers. 

 They may now be anywhere else ; in some 

 cases all we can say is that they are certainly 

 not now where they were then. 



The association of the three great European 

 rivers, the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Danube, 

 with the past history of our race, invests them 

 with a singular fascination, and their past his- 

 tory is one of much interest. They all three 

 rise in the group of mountains between the 

 Galenstock and the Bernardino, within a space 

 of a few miles ; on the east the waters run into 

 the Black Sea, on the north into the German 

 Ocean, and on the west into the Mediterranean. 

 But it has not always been so. Their head- 

 waters have been at one time interwoven 

 together. 



