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DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE PRUSSIANS.

city as a house, holding just upon eight hundred hogsheads.We must, therefore, in order to have a notion of the over-whelmiug torrent continually being poured over the rocks bySchaff hausen, conceive one thousand of these same monstertuns to be emptied over the great dyke of Hmestone there withevery beat of the pulse, and the same tremendous tide to keepfor ever Streaming along, and almost at the same rate.*

As vet, however, we have dealt only with the size andvolume of the cataract; let us therefore proceed in due courseto explain how the great body of water that is precipitated atthe Falls is broken up in its descent.

The enormous wall of rock over which the flood descendsis, for the most part, hidden beneath the glassy sheet Streamingover it; so that the fall itself appears like a huge escarpmentof water. In the midst of this liquid mound immense slabs orplates of crag stand up edge-wise, their peaks raised highabove the level of the upper bed of the river, and seeming likethe broken piers of some lofty bridge that has been swcptaway by the torrent. By means of the fonr protruding rock-plates (two of which stand close together in the centre of thefall, and two more not far from the side opposite the Castle f),the cataract is parted into five distinct " diätes," consisting oftwo broad falls and three minor cascades, the latter being

* This Statement, of course, does not hold good with regard to the months ofJune and July, when the waters are at their highest point, being swollen by themelting of the Alpine snow. The waters of the Lake of Constanz, with which theRhine Falls are immediately connected, are (according to a table published by Dr.Dilümann) lowest in February, after which they keep gradually rising tili themonth of June, when they are six feet higher than at their lowest period. Theythen remain stationary tili the middle of July, when they begin to descend, andcontinue falling tili the middle of August; at which period they become stationaryfor another month, remaining about five feet higher than in February. Towardsthe end of September they commence falling again, and go on descending tiliFebruary, when, as we have said, they reach their lowest point.

f From the point of view at which the accompanying picture was taken butthree of these rocks, and four divisions of the Falls, would bc visible.