LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 



By Alexander Dallas Bache. 



[The following lectnre on SwitzerlantI, from the manuscript of Professor Bache, is 

 here published for the first time to illustrate in connection with the foregoing eulogy 

 his habit of observation and his facility of description. It presents, however, a lively 

 sketch of one of the most interesting jiortions of the earth, whether considered from a 

 historical or physical point of view, and we doubt not will be read with pleasure, 

 especially by all who have been favored with a visit to the delightful region which it 

 describes. The original notes from which the lecture was iircpared were taken during 

 the Professor's visit to Switzerland in 1837-38. The foot-notes, exhibiting the present 

 condition of the country, have been kindly furnished to us by the Hon. Mr. Hitz, Swiss 

 consul general in this city. — J. H.] 



Travelers relate that in certain conditions of the atmosphere a spec- 

 tator standing" upon the shore at Eeggio, and looking upon the smooth 

 waters of the Straits of Messina, sees suddenly rise before him, as if by 

 magic, tbe walls, towers, palaces, domes, and streets of a city, in which 

 mimic life goes on, men and animals moving noiselessly to and fro. The 

 illusion is as complete as if the waters of the bay were a foundation 

 upon which the genii of the lamp or of the ring had suddenly erected 

 their magic structures. This is an extreme case of the ordinary illusion 

 l)resented to those who, in a calm clear day, look at distant objects 

 across a wide expanse of bay or river. Familiar forms are strangely 

 distorted ; level shores appear x>recipitous 5 the puny sloop swells into 

 the size of a frigate ; the fisherman's boat becomes a dismasted sloop, 

 and its occupant a giant. Just so it is when in mental vision we attempt 

 to look through an atmosphere disturbed by the habits and ijrejudices 

 to which we are accustomed. Unreal towers and walls appear, and 

 objects so lose their shapes that the most familiar forms escape recog- 

 nition. Every country has its prejudices resulting from education, from 

 all the influences, political, moral, social, and physical which surround 

 and act ui)on its citizens. By these, in general, the observer of men 

 and things is biased, and he who through the mists of Ms national or 

 personal prejudices seeks to realize their just forms and proportions, 

 may mistake the pigmy for a giaut, the shallop for a frigate. 



In estimating the institutions of the Old World we are prone to forget 

 that the materials for our judgment are generally furnished by the opin- 

 ions of those who are brought up under a totally different state of things 

 from that which exists around us. The conclusions which we thus form 

 may be the very opposite of those to which we would have come our- 

 selves, had our own prepossessions furnished the inferences from the 

 facts. In neither case, perhaps, would truth be arrived at, but in the 



