TUE RUINE FALLS BT SCHAFFHAUSEN.

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Forth rushing wrathfully down a deep descent, leaping infoam over a perpendicular rock more than 160 feet high, andthen flowing away in the semblance of milk from a vast basinof emerald."

To have a notion, however, of the Rinne Falls, the readershould imagine a huge wall to be built up across the Seine atParis, somewhat higher than the bridgcs there, and the pent-upriver to be hurled perpendicularly over the coping in onebroad glassy sheet.

Such an image, however, will enable the stranger to forma conception of the mere size of the fall—of the breadth ofthe stream, and the depth of the huge step in the bed of theriver, down which the flood is preeipitated.

But how shall we convey to the mind any adequate senseof the stupendous stream of water for ever sweeping over thissteep bank of rock !

It is calculated that the great Fall of Niagara preeipitatesat least one hundred million tons, or about four hundredmillion hogsheads, of liquid per minute. But the llhine Fallsare not half as broad, nor half as high, as those of the greatAmerican cataract, being really only one-seventh its size: *so that, supposing all other circumstances to be equal, theRhenish torrent would discharge near upon a million hogs-heads every second.

But who can coneeive a million hogsheads mingled into onedense flood ? Let us, therefore still make the matter clearer tothe comprehension.

The great Heidelberg tun has about the same eubie capa-

* The Falls of Niagara are 600 + 200 feet broad, and about 100 feet high.The Rinne Falls, on the other band, are 300 feet wide and about 60 feet inheight; so that the one contains 128,000 superficial feet, and the other 18,000.The Falls of Terni, near Rome (the " Cascata dell' Marmore"), are between600 and 700 feet high, wbile those of the Slaubbach, near Interlachen, are from800 to 900 feet in height; but both of these are narrow streams.