226 
SCENERY OF SWITZERLAND. 
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 own story is one of much in- 
terest. They all three derive part of their upper 
waters from the group of mountains between the 
Galenstock and the Bernardine, within a space of 
a few miles; on the east the waters now run into the 
Black Sea, on the north to the German Ocean, and 
on the west to the Mediterranean. But it has not 
always been so. Their head-waters have been at one 
time interwoven together. 
The present drainage of Western Switzerland is 
very remarkable. If you stand on a height over- 
looking the valley of the Arve near Geneva, you see 
a semicircle of mountains — the Jura, the Vuache, the 
Voirons, etc., which enclose the west end of the Lake 
of Geneva; the Arve runs towards the lake, which 
itself opens out towards Lausanne, where a tract of 
low land alone separates it from the Lake of Neu- 
chatel and the valley of the Aar. This seems the 
natural outlet for the waters of the Rhone and the 
Arve. As a matter of fact, however, they escape 
from the Lake of Geneva at the western end, through 
the remarkable defile of Fort de l’Ecluse and Mau- 
pertuis, which has a depth of nearly 300 metres, 
