424 
The Water Economy of France 
direction, till it reaches the sea just below the mouth of the Loire, 
in the extreme south of Brittany. 
The southern oceanic basin, or that of the Garonne, has for its 
northern barrier this last-named chain from the sea to the moun- 
tains of Auveyfrne. From thence its eastern Ijoundary is formed 
by the chain of the Cevennes, which run towards the south-west 
until they reach the Pyrenees, and these great frontier mountains 
continue the circuit westward to the Bay of Biscay. 
Of the Mediterranean basin the western watershed has been 
already traced. Commencing from the north, near Langres, it 
consisted first, of the Burgundian hills (the boundary of the 
north-Avestern basin), next of the chain running to the south of 
Lyons, the eastern boundary of the Loire basin ; and lastly, of the 
Cevennes, till they join the eastern Pyrenees on the skirts of the 
Mediterranean. Its eastern barrier is identical with that of the 
north-eastern division, from its apex southwards to Gex, above 
Geneva ; and from thence following the contour of the Lake of 
CJeneva by Neufchatel and Lausanne, it penetrates deeply into 
the very heart of the southern slopes of the Bernese Alps and the 
Great St. Bernard, as far as the very source of its main artery, 
the swift and mighty Rhone. It then follows the snow"-capped 
summit of tlie wliole range of tlie Alps from Great St. Bernard, 
Mont Blanc, and the Cottian chain, down to their very base, 
bathed by the blue waves of the Mediterranean at Nice. 
This outline, which purposely avoids the mention of places 
unknown to foreign readers, will, it is hoped, be found fairly 
accurate and intelligible. It will at least bring out one point of 
hydrographical interest, viz., the great degree of fusion and 
approximation which water-channels produce between the north 
and the south, the east and west. From what a northerly source 
are those head-waters derived which run into the Mediterranean ! 
What a tale the streams of the Loire might tell to Central France 
and the bleak shores of the Atlantic, of the sunny regions where 
first they saw the light ! 
Of the rivers which traverse the north-eastern basin the most 
important is the Rhine, which noble stream, however, is hardly 
French, flowing as it does along, or external to, the French 
frontier. On the upper part of its course a few insignificant 
streams from the eastern declivities of the Vosges supply its 
only tribute of French waters, except those which the Moselle 
gathers, in the upper part of its course, from the Meurthe and 
the Sarre. 
The Meuse, from its source down to the schistose formation of 
the Ardennes, runs through a valley scooped out of the middle 
oolite, and receives at Namur the tribute of the Sambre, a river 
having nothing French but its source. 
