foreign affairs, the settlement of disputes between the cantons, and the management of the police and post-office, to a Federal Assembly (Bundes Versammlung) representing all the cantons. The Federal Assembly consists of two chambers, first, the State Council (Stände rath); second, the National Council (National rath). The former is composed of 44 members, two representing each canton; the latter, of 120 members, elected by the cantons, in the proportion of one to 20,000 inhabitants. These bodies depute the executive authority to the Federal Council (Bundes rath), consisting of seven members, and holding office for three years. The president is merely one of the council, and he has none of the quasi-royal privileges of the American president, whose functions are discharged by the whole council. Different systems of law still prevail in the different cantons, which to some extent resemble each other, the most of them having grown out of the old German codes. In recent times, trial by jury has been introduced, but in the Catholic cantons the codes of law carry us back to the middle ages: they still prescribe for certain offences various degrees of corporal punishment, exposure on the pillory, and public penance in the churches. In Switzerland, property is much subdivided, and this has exercised a very marked effect on the population. Of 485,000 heads of families, no less than 465,000 possess landed property. In the absence of great landed estates, there is no powerful aristocratic class. There are no titles of Swiss origin, families possessing such distinctions deriving them from abroad.

There is no standing army in Switzerland, but every citizen is obliged to serve as a soldier, and military drill is taught at all the schools.

Language and Religion.-In the sequestered valleys of the Grisons, two-thirds of the population still speak a Latin dialect known as the Romaunsh; Italian dialects have penetrated up the valleys of Ticino; French prevails in Western Switzerland; in the rest of the country the dialects are German. Of every 1000 Swiss, 702 speak German, 226 French, 55 Italian, and 17 Romaunsh. The Swiss Reformation spread chiefly from Basle, Berne, and Geneva, and the chief Protestant districts are the countries communicating with these towns. The Alpine region is almost entirely Roman Catholic, the seven Catholic cantons being Lucerne, Zug, Schwytz, Uri, Unterwalden, Valais, and Ticino. Out of 1000 Swiss, 411 are Roman Catholics, 587 Protestants, and 2 Jews.

Education.-In no country is elementary instruction more widely diffused. Parents are compelled to send their children to school from five to eight, but not above that age. There are universities on the German model at Basle, Berne, and Zurich, and academies on the French plan at Geneva and Lausanne. The number of clubs for scientific and literary, musical and social purposes, is most remarkable. There are no pursuits to which a class of men can

devote themselves which are not represented by societies in Switzerland. The local political assemblies and other public meetings give ample employment to the newspaper and periodical press. In Switzerland there are accordingly 188 political journals, and 167 periodicals devoted to literature and science. There are 40 daily papers. This active intellectual life is, however, chiefly confined to the Protestant cantons.

Productions.-In Switzerland, where good coal is not to be had, and where the houses are built of wood, the forests, which cover onesixth of the whole surface, acquire very great importance. Woodcutting is one of the chief employments of the people. The trees cut down in the highlands are deprived of their branches, and shot with inconceivable rapidity over the slopes to the valleys below, whence they are removed by rafts, not only to different parts of Switzerland, but to France and Germany. It is, however, the mountain-pastures and the meadows, forming two-fifths of the whole surface of the country, that supply the chief occupations of the people -those of herdsmen and shepherds. During the summer, the cattle are driven into the mountains, and tended by herdsmen, who take up their abode in the rude wooden huts known as châlets, and there the butter and cheese are made. In summer, it is estimated that there are in Switzerland upwards of a million of horned cattle, onefourth of which consists of milch cows. The produce of the dairy annually is valued at between one and two millions sterling. The best cheese is made at Emmen, Saanen, Simmenthal, Gruyères, and Ursern. The sheep of Switzerland are of inferior breed, and their wool is short and coarse; but the goats are numerous and fine. The plain is a fertile agricultural country; yet Switzerland, as a whole, produces only about two-thirds of the grain required for consumption. In Vaud and Neufchatel, the cultivation of the vine is the chief occupation of the people; and in other parts, more particularly on the shores of the Lake of Constance, there are extensive orchards, in which are prepared cider and kirschwasser, the latter being a liquor largely consumed in Switzerland. It will give some idea of the extent to which Switzerland is cultivated, to state, that out of every hundred square miles of surface, thirty are occupied by rocks, glaciers, and water; twenty by hill-pastures; seventeen by forests; eleven by arable lands; twenty by meadows; and one by vineyards.

Manufactures.-The manufacturing districts are not scattered over the whole surface of the country; they are met with chiefly on the northern frontier. The chief manufactures are-at Zurich, silkstuffs to the value of £1,600,000 annually, and cottons; at St Gall and Appenzell, cottons; in Aargau and Glarus, cottons, linens, silks, and hosiery; at Basle, silk-stuffs to the value of £1,400,000, leather, paper, and tobacco; in Aargau and Lucerne, straw-plaiting; in Neufchatel, watch-making and cotton-printing; in Geneva, watch

making and jewellery. Internal communication has long been facilitated in Switzerland by excellent roads, and every advantage has been taken of the lakes to introduce steam-navigation. The plain is now overspread from one end to the other with a network of railways, which in many directions send ramifications into the Alpine valleys, thus connecting closely all parts of the country.

Although Switzerland is inland, its commerce in proportion to population has long exceeded that of any other country of Europe. According to a calculation made in 1856, the value of the trade of Switzerland gave for each individual of the population 406 francs; while the rate in England was only 268, in France 101, in the German customs-union 83, and in Belgium 296. This remarkable result is owing partly to the system of free-trade early adopted and consistently followed, partly to the cheapness of the administration; and especially to the circumstance that there is no standing army to withdraw, as in other continental countries, an ever-increasing proportion of the population from productive industry.

The early establishment of freedom in trade is partly attributable to the contending interests of the different cantons. Some cantons are agricultural, and others contain large seats of manufacture. But the agricultural cantons would feel it very hard to be obliged to buy manufactured goods from a neighbouring canton at a dearer rate than they could buy them from somewhere abroad; the peasantry of Vaud have no idea of emptying their pockets to benefit the manufacturers of Basle or Zurich. The free system which thus grew up spontaneously, as it were, was all along consistently upheld by the central authorities, and was preserved essentially intact in the new constitution of 1848; for although it was necessary to raise a revenue for the maintenance of the central government, the duties imposed were very light, and were strictly financial and not protective. At the same time, all internal obstructions to commerce, in the shape of duties between the several cantons, and road and bridge tolls, were done away with, the confederation undertaking to pay a yearly sum as indemnity to the cantons concerned.

The Watch Manufacture.-Geneva and Neufchatel are the seat of the watch manufacture, a large proportion of the watches being made in hamlets and villages throughout the two cantons. In the long valley called the Val Travers, stretching from the neighbourhood of Neufchatel to the borders of France, and at Locle, in the same quarter, are numerous small factories of these elegant articles. The existence of a great manufacture in cottages scattered over fifty miles of mountains, covered some months in the year with snows so deep as to imprison the inhabitants in their dwellings, is a singular fact in social economy well worthy of notice. One of the most intelligent of the village watchmakers presented Dr Bowring with an interesting account of the origin and progress of this remarkable trade, from which we draw the following passages :

'As early as the seventeenth century, some workmen had constructed wooden clocks with weights, after the model of the parish clock which was placed in the church of Locle in the year 1630. But no idea had as yet been conceived of making clocks with springs. It was only about the latter end of the same century that an inhabitant of these mountains, having returned from a long voyage, brought back with him a watch, an object which was till that time unknown in the country. Being obliged to have his watch repaired, he carried it to a mechanic named Richard, who had the reputation of being a skilful workman.

Richard succeeded in repairing the watch, and having attentively examined its mechanism, conceived the idea of constructing a similar article. By dint of labour and perseverance, he at length succeeded, though not without having had great difficulties to surmount; and he was compelled to construct all the different movements of the watch, and even to manufacture some ill-finished tools in order to assist him in his labours. When this undertaking was completed, it created a great sensation in the country, and excited the emulation of several men of genius to imitate the example of their fellow-citizen; and thus, very fortunately, watchmaking was gradually introduced among our mountains, the inhabitants of which had hitherto exercised no other trade or profession than those which were strictly necessary to their daily wants, their time being principally employed in cultivating an ungrateful and unproductive soil.

'For a number of years, those who betook themselves to watchmaking were placed at a great disadvantage, by having to import their tools; but these they in time learned to make and greatly to improve upon. In proportion as men embraced the profession of watchmaking, the art became more developed; several returned from Paris, where they had gone to perfect themselves, and contributed by their knowledge to advance the general skill. It is now little more than a century since a few merchants began to collect together small parcels of watches, in order to sell them in foreign markets. The success which attended these speculations induced and encouraged the population of these countries to devote themselves still more to the production of articles of ready sale; so much so, that very nearly the whole population has, with a very few exceptions, embraced the watchmaking trade. Meanwhile the population has increased threefold, independently of the great number of workmen who are established in almost all the towns of Europe, in the United States of America, and even in the East Indies and China. Latterly, the export of watches has been very considerable, and the small and delicate watches of Switzerland are known in almost every country in the world.'

FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY.

Switzerland is celebrated for its picturesque beauty, and is a favourite resort of tourists from England. Its lakes are the most beautiful of their kind, for they are surrounded with lofty hills, the lower parts of which are green, and the higher rocky and grand. The many pretty cottages on the hills are also a striking feature in the scene. The finest of the lakes is that of Lucerne, extending southwards from that town from 20 to 30 miles, and which, for the accommodation of travellers, is now traversed by steam-boats several times a day.

What imparts to the Lake of Lucerne a character beyond that of mere physical beauty, is its connection with the history of Helvetic independence. It is Tell's lake-its shores, as we have seen, are the scene of his exploits-and hence they bear that kind of moral charm which consecrates the ground on which heroic actions have been evoked.

The lake, which is most irregular in its outline, bending into divers forms, is sometimes named the Lake of the Four Cantons,