It rises at an elevation of 7800 ft., in a small lake under the Piz Longhino, in the Swiss canton of the Grisons.
The Rhine rises in the mountains of the Swiss canton of the Grisons, and flows for 233 m.
The bishopric still exists, with jurisdiction over the Cantons of the Grisons, Glarus, Zurich, and the three Forest Cantons, as well as the Austrian principality of Liechtenstein.
From the Grisons, who favoured France and Venice, Spain seized the Valtelline in 1620, incidentally uprooting heresy there by the massacre of six hundred Protestants.
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1815 of the Swiss Confederation, at least so far as regards the mountain Cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively.