Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/449

political entity, as we have said; and northern France would be far more thoroughly Teutonized than it is to-day. In order to make this clear, we must recall the topography of the district for a moment. From the Alps in western Switzerland a spur of mountainous country of very indifferent fertility, known as the Ardennes plateau, extends far out to the northwest, its axis lying along the Franco-German frontier, as our map of the geography of France shows. This area is triangular in shape, with its apex touching Switzerland, the Rhine forming its eastern edge, and its base lying east and west across Belgium a little north of Brussels. This base is the geographical boundary between Flanders and the rugged uplands. Near the southern point, this Ardennes plateau rises into the Vosges Mountains. The major part of it consists of an elevated table-land, of little use in agriculture. Its uplands are heavily forested; its valleys are deep and very narrow. This plateau is divided from the main body of the Alps by a low pass about twenty-five miles wide, known as the Gap of Belfort. This has always formed the main pathway of communication between the valleys of the Seine, the Rhone, and