which latter is about 4,400 feet above the sea. The canton of Soleure is one of the most productive in Switzerland, especially in corn, fruit, and vegetables. The vine thrives only in certain localities. The mulberry-tree is cultivated, and some silk is made. The horse-fair of Soleure is one of the principal in Switzerland. A considerable quantity of cheese is made, both from cows' milk and goats' milk, and part of it is exported. A part of the mountains is covered with timber-trees, particularly fir and beech. Iron mines abound in the canton, and the ore is melted in the furnaces of St. Joseph, and worked at the iron-works of Klus. The other manufactures consist of leather, paper, woollens, and kinchwasser. Quarries also are worked of marble and gypsum.

The constitution of the canton was for a long time aristocratical, as in most of the Swiss cantons, but a new one was formed in January, 1831, on a more popular system. The canton is divided into ten electoral circles, each having its electoral college, which names a certain proportion of members to the great council of legislation. The town of Soleure returns thirty-four out of the hundred and nine members who compose the great council, which is renewed every six years. A little council, chosen from among the members of the great council, forms the executive.

A dialect of the Swiss-German is the language of the country. The inhabitants are Roman Catholics, with the exception of those of the district of Bucheggberg, and a small congregation in the town of Soleure, which profess the Helvetic reformed communion. Most families are possessed of landed property. Every commune has now an elementary school, and a normal school has been established at Soleure. Most of the communes have a fund for the relief of their own poor.

Soleure, the capital, a bishop's see, is nineteen miles north of Berne, and twenty-six south of Bâle. It is built on both banks of the Aar, 1,320 feet above the sea, and is surrounded by walls. The cathedral is considered the first church in Switzerland; the tower is 190 feet high. The canons of Soleure receive about 2,600 francs a year, and the emoluments of the bishops are 10,000 francs. The other remarkable buildings of Soleure are the town-house, which is very old, the arsenal, the theatre, the hospital, the former church of the Jesuits, and several convents. There is a remarkable fountain in the market-place. Soleure has a gymnasium with six professors, a lyceum with three professors, and a faculty of theology divided into three classes. The town library contains about 15,000 volumes. Another library belongs to the cathedral, which is said to contain many valuable manuscripts; and there are several others in the town. Soleure has a cabinet of natural history, a botanical garden, a society for the natural sciences, a medical society, a literary society, a dramatic society, and a military society.

The Swiss canton Aargau, or Argovia, has Soleure and Bâle on the west. It possesses a very considerable extent of fertile land. It is traversed by the Aar, from whence it derives its name, and by its important tributaries, the Reuss and the Limmat. Its mountains do not attain any very great height. The country is well cultivated; the produce of wheat and other grain exceeds the consumption; the vineyards are numerous, but the wine is inferior, and there is an abundance of garden and orchard fruit. Manufactures have made in this canton considerable progress. Cottons are woven mostly in the cottages of the peasants, or small labouring farmers, and to these may be added silk, linen, and straw platting. Especial attention has been paid here to education, as every district of one hundred and twenty children must have, at least, one primary and one superior school.

The capital bears the same name: it is well built, has a gymnasium, a school of art, and another for the instruction of teachers, with other institutions. Here, too, manufactures are carried on.

Schaffhausen is one of the small cantons of Switzerland. The people profess the reformed religion. The language of the country is a dialect of the German, resembling

that of Suabia. The surface of the canton is hilly, and the soil mostly calcarinous. The gencral slope of the valleys is southwards towards the Rhine, which drains the whole country. This canton produces corn, wine, flax, hemp, and fruits, especially cherries. Agriculture forms the chief occupation of the people. The climate, compared with other parts of Switzerland, is mild. The canton has iron-mines, from which about 30,000 hundredweight of iron is annually obtained. Most of the ore is smelted in the furnaces of Laufen, near the fall of the Rhine.

The government was formerly like that of the Swiss cantons; the citizens of the head town being the legislators, and the country population subject to them, but the democratic principle became established by the new constitution of 1831. By this arrangement all citizens of twenty years of age became electors. Paupers, bankrupts, and criminals were deprived of the franchise. Foreigners purchasing the bourgeoisie, or freedom of one of the communes of the canton, became entitled, after five years, to the elective franchise. The legislative body, called the great council, consists of seventyeight members. The little council, like it, is renewed every four years.

Schaffhausen was originally a hamlet for boatmen and a place for unlading goods from the lake of Constance by the Rhine, the boats being obliged to stop here on account of the falls in the river below the town. Hence its name Scapha. In the eleventh century a large monastery being built in the neighbourhood, a town afterwards grew around it, and in the thirteenth century it was walled, and obtained the rank of an imperial town. It was long in the possession of the house of Austria, but subsequently recovered its independence, allied itself to the Swiss cantons, and was received as a member of the confederation.

For a long period all attempts to build a bridge at Schaffhausen utterly failed. They were either constructed on wrong principles, or, apparently right, were too fragile to sustain the impetuous rush of the waters. At length, Grubenmann, a common carpenter, a native of Appenzell, an ingenious but self-taught man, contemplated the construction of a new bridge, which was now of great importance. He succeeded in his object, and the single arch, having a span of three hundred and forty-two feet, roofed in at top, and with a carriage-way let into the middle, which he threw across the waters of the Rhine, remained for forty years a witness to his skill. And so it would have continued, but it was burned down by the French army under Oudinot, in the year 1799, at the instant the Austrians took possession of Schaffhausen. Three other bridges were constructed in Switzerland by this remarkable man and his brother, which have escaped so disastrous a fate.

Schaffhausen now meets the view as built on the side of a hill which slopes to the bank of the Rhine, and is about 1,200 feet above the sea. It is surrounded by walls, flanked with houses, and has a fort, the vaults of which are bomb-proof. The streets are very low, and most of the houses have an aged appearance, but many are modern and handsome. The most remarkable buildings are the cathedral, the church of St. John, the town-house, and the arsenal. There is a college, with two professors, a gymnasium, several elementary schools, and an orphan asylum. The town library has come into possession of the library of John Müller, the historian of Switzerland. A bridge has re-placed that of Grubenmann.

The small town of Stein, which is situated at the outlet of the Rhine from the Untersee, or lower Lake of Constance, has a handsome bridge over the Rhine and some remarkable old buildings.

The cataract begins about a league above Laufen, where the river, passing over a rocky channel, forms a succession of rapids. With a force gradually acquired from its speed, it falls first in a broad verdant sheet, and then, "whitening by degrees into foaming impetuosity, it bursts at last in three distinct branches over a precipice, upwards of eighty

feet in height, and presents the most sublime spectacle in Switzerland. The best moment for witnessing this phenomenon in all its grandeur is about sunset in the month of July. The volume of water is then at the highest; and the usual stillness of the hour, and deepening hue of twilight, conspire in a wonderful degree to heighten the effect. Then the cataract seems to rush from the sky like an avalanche-filling the air with whirlwinds of vapour, and stunning the ear with the thunder of its fall. At that hour the foam is of dazzling whiteness; clouds of drizzling vapour incessantly form and vanish away; the ever-boiling vortex of the basin, into which the vast body of water is precipitated, represents a storm in miniature; the trees, and rocks, and precipices, agitated by the continual shock imparted to the atmosphere, and that deep unslacking roar in which the voice of a Stentor seems hushed into a whisper, impart sensations which it is difficult to explain, and impossible for any spectator to forget. Should the full moon rise as an accompaniment upon the scene, the whole becomes changed, magħified and improved, under its magic influence; and every succeeding hour presents the sublime spectacle under some new and more imposing aspect. The moment at which, perhaps, the greatest number of circumstances combine to exhibit the cataract in its unrivalled magnificence, is a little after midnight. Then nature seems to have but one voice, to which the hushed and solitary ear of man listens in profound awe, while the flashing of the foam clothes every surrounding object with meteoric lustre.

"At sunrise, also, the scene is different, but only in the hues, not in the degree, of its magnificence. There

The isolated rocky pillars, by which the river is divided into a triple fall, seem as entirely cut off from all social intercourse with the shores opposite, as if the latter were some inaccessible point in the Alps. They are covered with green bushes, and have been for some time, colonised with rabbits, which certainly have nothing to fear, ab externo, provided supplies last, and population does not exceed the territory. These rocks rise to a considerable height, and present, severally, the appearance of a bold flood-gate, through which the river, split into three branches, rushes with inconceivable impetuosity. The contrast also is striking; and, with the shrubs, and plants, and flowers, and the colouring already mentioned, they look like arks in the deluge, charged with the preservation of animal and vegetable life—but a deluge whose waters never subside."

• Beattie.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CONSTANCE AND ITS LAKE-ST. GALL-APPENZELL.

MOST delightful is the situation of Constance on the banks of the Rhine, at the point where it emerges from the Lake of Constance. This is the largest lake belonging to Germany. Its length is about thirty-four miles, its greatest breadth about eight miles and a half, its area is about two hundred square miles, and its greatest depth nine hundred and sixty-four feet. The Rhine enters the Lake of Constance on the south-east, and issues from its north-west extremity at the city of Constance, connecting it with the lake called the Unter, or Zeller-see, which contains the fertile island of Reichenau, and is sometimes considered part of the Lake of Constance. The banks of the latter are mostly flat, or greatly undulating, but distinguished for their fertility. They abound with corn-fields and orchards, and yield a tolerable wine. The south shore especially is studded with a picturesque line of ruined castles, and other remains of the middle ages; and both sides are crowded with numerous towns and villages, the principal of which are Landau in Bavaria, Miersburg and Neberling in Baden, Arbon in Switzerland, and Bregenz in the Austrian dominions. The waters of this lake are green, clear, and subject to sudden risings, the cause of which has not been satisfactorily explained.

Coxe says in one of his letters, "I am writing on board the vessel; and I have been for some time in vain attempting to distinguish, what some travellers have affirmed to be discernible, the waters of the Rhine from those of the lake; though, indeed, I was before almost convinced of the impossibility. For the river in its course from the superior lake, being exactly of the same beautiful greenish colour as the inferior lake into which it flows, it is evident that the one can never be distinguished from the other. Probably upon its first entrance into the superior lake it is troubled, and, consequently, for some way its current may easily be traced; but it purifies by degrees, and becomes an indistinct part of the great body of water.

"This lake, like all the other lakes of Switzerland, is considerably deeper in summer than in winter-a circumstance owing to the first melting of the snow from the neighbouring mountains. Yesterday evening, in an expedition to Meinau, there was scarcely a breeze stirring, and the lake was as smooth as crystal; a brisk gale has now raised a fine curl upon the surface, and the surrounding landscape forms an assemblage of the most beautiful objects. In short, the several views which present themselves are so truly enchanting, as to make me regret every moment that my eyes are called off from the delightful scene."

The great trout which abounds in the Lake of Constance, and generally in the Swiss lakes, is the one called in the neighbourhood Illankin, and by Linnæus Salmo lacustris. The head is conical, and larger in proportion than that of a salmon. The dorsal fin has twelve rays, the pectoral fourteen, and the other two, twelve each. The under jaw in full-grown fish ends in a blunt hook. The colour, as low as the lateral line, is of a deep blue, brightening as it approaches the line; beneath that of a silvery-white; all

the upper part is spotted irregularly with black. This kind grows to the weight of forty or forty-five pounds.

These fishes quit the deeps of the lake in April, and go up the Rhine to deposit their spawn. The inhabitants of the shores form weirs across the river, in which they take them in their passage. They are also caught in nets. The fishing lasts from May to September; the fishermen avoid taking any on their return, as they are then very lean and quite exhausted. In spring and summer their flesh is of a fine red, and very delicate; but after they have spawned, it turns white and becomes very indifferent. They feed on fish, worms, and insects, and are particularly destructive to the gray lings. Their great enemy is the pike, which will attack an illankin four times as large as itself.

Constance is one of the oldest cities in Germany, and highly interesting from its historical associations. When formerly in alliance with Zurich and Bâle, and supported by those cantons, it expelled its bishop, and embraced the doctrines of the Reformation. But the Protestant cantons being worsted in 1351, and the league of Smalcalde, of which Constance was a member, being defeated by Charles V., the city was obliged to submit to the emperor. It was afterwards attached to the Austrian dominions, and in 1805 to those of the grand duchy of Baden.

Constance is fortified by a wall flanked with towers, and surrounded by a ditch. The cathedral, begun in 1052, is a handsome Gothic structure, with a lofty steeple, commanding an extensive view of the lake and country as far as the mountains of Voralberg and the Grisons. The doors of the main portal are curiously carved; and the choir is supported by sixteen pillars, each formed of a single block. The splendour of the high altar, and several of the tombs, attest the ancient wealth and grandeur of the see, which was formerly the most considerable in Germany, and had large possessions in, and jurisdiction over, Switzerland.

The kaufhaus, or market-hall, erected in 1388, is interesting as being the place of meeting of the Council of Constance, held from 1414 to 1418, to which an allusion has already been made. So great was the concourse of ecclesiastics and others from all parts of Christendom on this occasion, that not only the houses in the city were crowded, but booths were erected in the streets, while thousands of pilgrims were encamped in the adjacent fields. Religious processions, dramatic representations, and entertainments of every description, hourly succeeded each other; and thousands of individuals were employed solely in transporting thither the choicest delicacies of Europe.

To some of its proceedings we must now refer more particularly. It is stated by Fox, the martyrologist, that two Bohemians, who attended Queen Anne, first introduced the works of Wycliffe to some of their countrymen. Count Valerian Krasinski confirms this assertion from the History of Poland. One result was very remarkable. A native of Bohemia, named John Huss, secured for himself distinction in the University of Prague, to which the learned resorted from all parts of Europe. It acknowledged that "from his infancy he was of such excellent morals, that during his stay here we may venture to challenge any one to produce a single fault against him." Subsequently appointed minister of the chapel in that city, he entered on his work with zeal, but the opportunity he now obtained of perusing the writings of Wycliffe he was accustomed to describe as the happiest circumstance of his life. Not only in the pulpit, but in the schools, he inveighed against the enormous evils that prevailed, and, in consequence of the notorious corruption of the clergy, excited considerable attention. His disciples soon became numerous, and he was followed by many members of the university.

In 1398, he was selected by Queen Sophia, of Bavaria, the wife of King Wenceslaus, as her confessor. As the monarch had been degraded from the imperial dignity, he tolerated the movement that now arose, as distasteful to his enemies, while his queen