St Gall, a Swiss canton, with the Lake of Constance on the N. It is for the most part mountainous, rising to 10,660 feet in Ringelspitz, and to 8216 in Santis. The Rhine flows along the eastern border. Area, 779 sq. m.; pop. (1900) 250,285, mainly Roman Catholic and German-speaking. - St Gall, the capital, stands on the Steinach, 2196 feet above sea-level (the highest town in Europe), 53 miles by rail E. of Zurich, and 9 from Rorschach on the Lake of Constance. The buildings of its famous Benedictine monastery are now used as government offices and schools, and for housing the monastic library, founded in 830, of 41,700 volumes and 1800 MSS. Other buildings are the old abbey church, made a cathedral in 1846; the Protestant church of St Lawrence; the town library, founded in 1536, and containing 60,400 volumes and 500 MSS.; and the museum. The city carries on a large trade in embroidered textiles (cotton, muslin, etc.), and in agricultural products. Pop. about 35,000. The original nucleus of the place was the cell of St Gall (c. 550-645), an Irish follower of St Columban, who settled here in 614. Around this soon grew up a Benedictine monastery, made by Charles Martel an abbey, which gradually became a masterpiece of mediAeval architecture and a home of the arts. At the French Revolution the abbey was secularised (1798), and its revenues sequestrated in 1805.