Alps

the highest and most extensive system of mountains in Europe, included between lat. 44° and 18° B., covering the greater part of Northern Italy, several departments of France, nearly the whole of Switzerland, and a large part of Austria, while its extensive ramifications connect it with nearly all the mountain systems of Europe..The culminating on is Mont Blanc, 15,- 781 feet high, though the true center is the St. Gothard, or the mountain ma where it belongs, from the slopes of which flow, either directly or by affiuents, the great rivers of Central Europe, the Danube, Rhine, Rhone, and Po.! Alsace-Lorraine (German, EIsa -Lothringen), since its ce ion by France, in 1871, a State or “ imperial territory ” (Reichsland) of the German empire.