or Mainz, Borbetomagus or Worms); but at the beginning of the historical period we find the Celts everywhere in retreat before the advancing Teutons. Probably the Teutonic pressure began as early as the 4th century before Christ, and the history of the next few hundred years may be summed up as the gradual substitution of a Germanic for a Celtic population along the banks of the Rhine. Its second historical period begins with the advent of the Romans, who stemmed the advancing Teutonic tide. Augustus and his successors took good care to fortify the Rhine carefully, and a large proportion of the Roman legions were constantly in garrison here. For two hundred years the Rhine formed the boundary between the Roman empire and the Teutonic hordes; and during that period the left or Roman bank made prodigious strides in civilization and culture. The wonderful Roman remains at Trier and elsewhere, the Roman roads, bridges and aqueducts, are convincing proofs of what the Rhine gained from Roman domination. This Roman civilization was, however, destined to be swamped by the current of Teutonic immigration, which finally broke down the barriers of the Roman empire and overwhelmed the whole of the Rhenish district. Under Charlemagne, whose principal residence was in Aix-la-Chapelle, the culture of the Rhine valley again began to flourish, its results being still to be traced in the important architectural remains of this period. At the partition of the domains of Charlemagne in A.D. 843 the Rhine formed the boundary between Germany and the middle kingdom of Lotharingia; but by 870 it lay wholly within the former realm. For nearly eight hundred years it continued in this position, the frontier of the German empire coinciding more or less with the line of the Rhone. During the early middle ages the bank of the Rhine formed the most cultured part of Germany, basing its civilization on its Roman past. The Thirty Years' War exercised a most prejudicial effect upon the district of the Rhine; and the peace of Westphalia gave France a footing on the left bank of the hitherto exclusively German river by the acquisition of Alsace. The violent seizure of Strassburg by France in 1681 was ratified by the peace of Ryswick in 1697, which recognized the Rhine as the boundary between Germany and France from Basel to about Germersheim. It was an easy inference for the French mind that the Rhine should be the boundary throughout and the Gaul of Caesar restored. This ideal was realized in 1801, when the whole of the left bank of the Rhine was formally ceded to France. The congress of Vienna (1815) restored the lower part of the Rhenish valley to Germany, but it was not till the war of 1870-71 that the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine made the Rhine once more “Germany's river, not Germany's frontier.” In the military history of all these centuries constant allusion is made to the Rhine, its passages and its fortresses. Every general who has fought in its neighbourhood has at one time or another had to provide for a crossing of the Rhine, from Julius Caesar, who crossed it twice, down to our own time. The wars carried on here by Louis XIV. are still remembered in the Rhine district, where the devastations of his generals were of the most appalling description; and scarcely a village or town but has a tale to tell of the murder and rapine of this period.
The Rhine in Literature.—The Rhine has always exercised a peculiar sort of fascination over the German mind, in a measure and in a manner not easily paralleled by the case of any other river. “Father Rhine” is the centre of the German's patriotism and the symbol of his country. In his literature it has played a prominent part from the Nibelungenlied to the present day; and its weird and romantic legends have been alternately the awe and the delight of his childhood. The Rhine was the classic river of the middle ages; and probably the Tiber alone is of equal historical interest among European rivers. But of late years the beauties of the Rhine have become sadly marred; the banks in places, especially between Coblenz and Bonn, disfigured by quarrying, the air made dense with the smoke of cement factories and steam-tugs, commanding spots falling a prey to the speculative builder and villages growing into towns.
See Daniel, Deutschland: Beyerhaus, Der Rhein von Strassburg bis zur holländischen Grenze (Coblenz, 1902); Mohr, Die Flösserei auf dem Rhein (Mannheim, 1897); C. Eckert, Rheinschiffahrt im 19ten Jahrhundert; Horn, Der Rhein, Geschichte and Sagen seiner Burgen (Stuttgart, 1893); Treutlein, Die neueren Deutschen Rheinstromstudien und ihre Ergebnisse (in Ausland, 1893); A. Chambalu, Die Stromveränderungen des Niederrheins seit der vorrömischen Zeit (Cologne, 1892), and Handbooks of Baedeker, Meyer and Woerl.
RHINE PROVINCE, or Rhineland, the most westerly province of the kingdom of Prussia, bounded on the N. by Holland, on the E. by the Prussian provinces of Westphalia and Hesse-Nassau, and the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, on the S.E. by the Bavarian Palatinate, on the S. and S.W. by Lorraine, and on the W. by Luxemburg, Belgium and Holland. The small district of Wetzlar in the midst of the province of Hesse also belongs to the Rhine Province, which, on the other hand, surrounds the Oldenburg principality of Birkenfeld. The extent of the province is 10,423 sq. m.; its extreme length, from north to south, is nearly 200 m., and its greatest breadth is just under 90 m. It includes about 200 m. of the course of the Rhine, which forms the eastern frontier of the province from Bingen to Coblenz, and then flows through it in a north-westerly direction.
The southern and larger part of the Rhine province, belonging geologically to the Devonian formations of the lower Rhine, is hilly. On the left bank are the elevated plateaus of the Hunsrück and the Eifel, separated from each other by the deep valley of the Mosel, while on the right bank are the spurs of the Westerwald and the Sauerland, the former reaching the river in the picturesque group known as the Seven Mountains (Siebengebirge). The highest hill in the province is the Walderbeskopf (2670 ft.) in the Hochwald, and there are several other summits above 2000 ft. on the left bank, while on the right there are few which attain a height of 1600 ft. Most of the hills are covered with trees, but the Eifel (q.v.) is a barren and bleak plateau. To the north of a line drawn from Aix-la-Chapelle to Bonn the province is flat, and marshy districts occur near the Dutch frontier. The climate varies considerably with the configuration of the surface. That of the northern lowlands and of the sheltered valleys is the mildest and most equable in Prussia, with a mean annual temperature of 50° Fahr., while on the hills of the Eifel the mean does not exceed 44°. The annual rainfall varies in the different districts from 18 to 32 inches. Almost the whole province belongs to the basin of the Rhine, but a small district in the north-west is drained by affluents of the Meuse. Of the numerous tributaries which join the Rhine within the province, the most important are the Nahe, the Mosel and the Ahr on the left bank, and the Sieg, the Wupper, the Ruhr and the Lippe on the right. The only lake of any size is the Laacher See, the largest of the “maare” or extinct crater lakes of the Eifel.
Of the total area of the Rhine province about 45% is occupied by arable land, 16% by meadows and pastures, and 31% by forests. Little except oats and potatoes can be raised on the high-lying plateaus in the south of the province, but the river-valleys and the northern lowlands are extremely fertile. The great bulk of the soil is in the hands of small proprietors, and this is alleged to have had the effect of somewhat retarding the progress of scientific agriculture. The usual cereal crops are, however, all grown with success, and tobacco, hops, flax, rape, hemp and beetroot (for sugar) are cultivated for commercial purposes. Large quantities of fruit are also produced. The vine-culture occupies a space of about 30,000 acres, about half of which are in the valley of the Mosel, a third in that of the Rhine itself, and the rest mainly on the Nahe and the Ahr. The choicest varieties of Rhine wine, however, such as Johannisberger and Steinberger, are produced higher up the river, beyond the limits of the Rhine province. In the hilly districts more than half the surface is sometimes occupied by forests, and large plantations of oak are formed for the use of the bark in tanning. Considerable herds of cattle are reared on the rich pastures of the lower Rhine, but the
