(1893), Maerdy (1905), Dinas (1893), and Ferndale public halls, the property of a private company at Treherbert (1872), and Tonypandy (1891) and a county intermediate school at Porth. By means of a tunnel about 2100 yds. long water is obtained for the greater part of the main valley from the lake of Llyn Fawr on the Neath side of the mountain range which shuts in the valley on the north. This lake has been converted into a storage reservoir of about 167 million gallons capacity. The rest of the district is supplied from the Pontypridd Water Company’s works above Maerdy in the lesser valley.
The ancient parish (excluding Rhigos) was formed into a parliamentary constituency with one member in 1885. The present urban district substantially corresponds to the ancient territorial division of Glyn-rhondda, one of the four commotes of the cantred of Penychen, and subsequently, in Norman times, one of the twelve “members” of the lordship of Glamorgan. Its Welsh lords enjoyed a large measure of independence and had their own courts, in which Welsh law was administered down to 1535, when the lordship was fully incorporated in the county of Glamorgan. On the ridge of Cefn-rhondda between the two valleys was the Franciscan monastery of Penrhys, famous for its image of the Virgin and for its holy well which attracted large pilgrimages. It was dissolved about 1415, probably owing to its having supported Glyndwr in his rebellion. Edward II. came here from Neath Abbey and was captured on the 16th of November 1326, either at Penrhys, or between it and Llantrisant. (D. Ll. T.)
RHONE (Fr. Rhône, Lat. Rhodanus), one of the most important rivers in Europe, and the chief of those which flow directly into the Mediterranean. It rises at the upper or eastern extremity of the Swiss canton of the Valais, flows between the Bernese Alps (N.) and the Lepontine and Pennine Alps (S.) till it expands into the Lake of Geneva, winds round the southernmost spurs of the ]ura range, receives at Lyons its principal tributary, the Saône, and then turns southward through France till, by many mouths, it enters that part of the Mediterranean which is rightly called the Golfe du Lion (sometimes wrongly the Gulf of Lyons). Its total length from source to sea is 50412 m. (of which the Lake of Geneva claims 45 m.), while its total drainage area in 37,798 sq. m.,
of which 2772 sq. m. are in Switzerland (405 sq. m. of the Swiss portion being composed of glaciers), and its total fall 5898 ft. Its course (excluding the Lake of Geneva, q.v.) naturally falls into three divisions: (1) from its source to the Lake of Geneva, (2) from Geneva to Lyons, and (3) from Lyons to the Mediterranean.
1. From its source to the lake the Rhone is a purely Alpine river, flowing through the great trench which it has cut for itself between two of the loftiest Alpine ranges, and which (save a bit at its north-west end) forms the Canton of the Valais. Its length is 10512 m., while its fall is 4679 ft. It issues as a torrent, at the height of 5909 ft., from the great Rhone glacier at the head of the Valais, the recent retreat of this glacier having proved that the river really flows from beneath it, and does not take its rise from the warm springs that are now at some distance from its shrunken snout. It is almost immediately joined on the left by the Mutt torrent, coming from a small glacier to the S.E., and then flows S.W. for a short distance past the well-known Gletsch Hotel (where the roads from the Grimsel and the Furka Passes unite). But about half a mile from the glacier the river turns S.E. and descends through a wild gorge to the more level valley, bending again S.W. before reaching the first village, Oberwald. It preserves this south-westerly direction till Martigny. The uppermost valley of the Rhone is named Goms (Fr. Conches), its chief village being Münster, while Fiesch, lower down, is well known to most Swiss travellers. As the river rolls on, it is swollen by mountain torrents, descending from the glaciers on either side of its bed—so by the Geren (left), near Oberwald, by the Eginen (left), near Ulrichen, by the Fiesch (right), at Fiesch, by the Binna (left), near Grengiols, by the Massa (right), flowing from the great Aletsch glaciers, above Brieg. At Brieg the Rhone has descended 3678 ft. from its source, has flowed 28 m. in the open, and is already a considerable stream when joined (left) by the Saltine, descending from the Simplon Pass. Its course below Brieg is less rapid than before and lies through the alluvial deposits which it has brought down in the course of ages. The valley is wide and marshy, the river frequently overflowing its banks. Further mountain torrents (of greater volume than those higher up) fall into the Rhone as it rolls along in a south-westerly direction towards Martigny: the Visp (left), coming from the Zermatt valley, falls in at Visp, at Gampel the Lonza (right), from the Lötschen valley, at Leuk the Dala (right), from the Gemmi Pass, at Sierre the Navizen (left), from the Einfisch or Anniviers valley, at Sion, the capital of the Valais, the Borgne (left) from the Val d’Hérens; soon the Rhone is joined by the Morge (right), flowing from the Sanetsch Pass, and the boundary in the middle ages between Episcopal Valais to the east and Savoyard Valais to the west, and at Martigny by the Dranse (left), its chief Alpine tributary, from the Great St Bernard and the Val de Bagnes. At Martigny, about 50 m. from Brieg, the river bends sharply to the N.W., and runs in that direction to the Lake of Geneva. It receives the Salanfe (left), which forms the celebrated waterfall of Pissevache, before reaching the ancient town and abbey of St Maurice (912 m.). Henceforward the right bank is in the canton of Vaud (conquered from Savoy in 1475) and the left bank in that of the Valais (conquered similarly in 1536), for St Maurice marks the end of the historical Valais. Immediately below that town the Rhone rushes through a great natural gateway, a narrow and striking defile (now strongly fortified), which commands the entrance of the Valais. Beyond, the river enters the wide alluvial plain, formerly occupied by the south-eastern arm of the Lake of Geneva, but now marshy and requiring frequent “correction.” It receives at Bex the Avançon (right), flowing from the glaciers of the Diablerets range, at Monthey the Vièze (left), from Champéry and the Val d’Illiez, and at Aigle the Grande Eau (right), from the valley of Ormonts-dessus. It passes by the hamlet of Port Valais, once on the shore of the lake, before expanding into the Lake of Geneva, between Villeneuve (right) and St Gingolph (left). During all this portion of its course the Rhone is not navigable, but a railway line runs along it from Brieg in about 72 m. to either Villeneuve or Le Bouveret.
2. On issuing at Geneva from the lake the waters of the Rhone are very limpid and blue, as it has left all its impurities in the great settling vat of the lake, so that Byron might well speak of the “blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone” (Childe Harold, canto iii. stanza 71). But about half a mile below Geneva this limpidity is disturbed by the pouring in of the turbid torrent of the Arve (left), descending from the glaciers of the Mont Blanc range, the two currents for some distance refusing to mix. The distance from Geneva to Lyons by the tortuous course of the Rhone is about 124 m., the fall being only about 689 ft. The characteristic feature of this portion of the course of the Rhone is the number of narrow gorges or cluses through which it rushes, while it is forced by the southern spur of the Jura to run in a southerly direction, till, after rounding the base of that spur, it can flow freely westwards to Lyons. About 12 m. S. of Geneva the Rhone enters French territory, and henceforth till near Lyons forms first the eastern, then the southern boundary of the French department of the Ain, dividing it from those of Haute Savoie and Savoie (E.) and that of the Isère (S.). Soon after it becomes French the river rushes furiously through a deep gorge, being imprisoned on the north by the Crédo and on the south by the Vuache, while the great fortress of l’Écluse guards this entrance into France. The railway pierces the Crédo by a tunnel. In the narrowest portion of this gorge, not far from Bellegarde at its lower end, there formerly existed the famous Perte du Rhône (described by Saussure in his Voyages dans les Alpes, chapter xvii.), where for a certain distance the river disappeared in a subterranean channel; but this natural phenomenon has been destroyed, partly by blasting, and partly by the diversion of the water for the use of the factories of Bellegarde. At Bellegarde the Valserine flows in (right), and then the river resumes its southerly direction, from which the great gorge had deflected it for a while; Some way below Bellegarde, between Le Parc and Pyrimont, the
