expected to reach them.

Mr. Elmer, of the _Coblentzer Volkszeitung_, told me that the dialects of
the German language are so different, that the people of Coblentz and
those of Cologne can scarcely understand each other when they speak their
peculiar dialects.

The principle, that whenever a stream of water makes a curve, the outside
bank (that which turns the water from its strait course) is always more
precipitous than the other in proportion to the amount of curvature of the
stream, is well illustrated at the confluence of the Mosel and the Rhine
at Coblentz, by the course of the latter. The waters of the Mosel flow
almost perpendicularly against the right bank of the Rhine, and have
helped it in forming the precipitous rock of Ehrenbreitstein rising to the
height of 387 feet above the river, upon which stand the famous
fortifications of that name. The Rhine curves toward the left for about
six or eight miles, and its right bank is in consequence high and steep,
while the left bank is in the form of a gradual slope, bearing a striking
resemblance to the valley of the Jordan for a mile around Siegersville,
Lehigh Co., Pa. Another principle, that the width of a valley and the
hardness of its bed is always in proportion to the fall of the stream of
water flowing through it, does also find as ample illustrations in the
sweeping Rhine as in any of the humbler streams whose courses I had
watched and studied at home. These two principles afford perhaps the
strongest and most conclusive of all proofs, that the hills and valleys of
our planet are all the result of erosion.

The streets of Coblentz are mostly narrow, as are also its pavements, many
of the latter being only from one to two feet wide. There are several
remarkable churches, one, the Church of St. Castor dating from 1208, being