Rhine Falls

The most powerful waterfall in Europe, 150 metres wide and twenty-three high, on the border between the cantons of Schaffhausen and Zurich. Average flow runs at 250 cubic metres a second in winter and 600 in summer; the highest ever measured was 1,250 in 1965, the lowest ninety-five in 1921. It formed at the end of the last ice age, roughly 14,000 to 17,000 years ago, where erosion-resistant rock narrowed the riverbed. It is not, despite the noise, the highest fall in the country, that is the Mürrenbach Falls at 417 metres.