600 
being a Protestant. city, and of being 
free from the immorality and dissipation 
that prevail in many cities, which might 
in other respects be more eligible. 
The facilities for studying natural 
history are greater at Geneva than in 
England, but they are by no means 
equal to those in Paris.* : 
. There is an excellent botanical gar- 
den, well arranged, under the superin- 
tendance of M. deCandolle. A public 
museum is forming, intended to com- 
prise the animal and mineral kingdoms, 
and a considerable number of animals 
and mineral specimens are already col- 
lected and arranged. To the museum 
is attached a library for the use of sub- 
scribers, and also a reading-room and 
news-room, in which all the periodical 
scientific journals in Europe are taken 
in, with the French, Italian, and Ger- 
man newspapers. To this room, stran- 
gers, properly introduced, are admitted 
gratis., Annexed to the reading-room, 
is a room for conversation and chess. 
These rooms are open from nine o’clock 
in the morning to ten or eleven in the 
evening, and are a most agreeable ac- 
commodation to those who may spend 
a few months in Geneva. 
RELIGION. 
The Sundays are more strictly ob- 
served, at. Geneva than in most of the 
towns on the continent; during the 
hours of service the city gates are shut, 
and carriages are not permitted to drive 
through the streets. ‘The churches are 
* The facilities for the study of natural 
history at Paris are truly enviable; beside 
the lectures which are accessible to the 
public, the museums are arranged accord- 
ing to the most approved systems, and 
every thing has its name affixed. The 
student, with Cuvier’s Régne Animal, or 
with Hauy’s Mineralogy in his hand, may 
gain what information he requires. Where 
the labels are only partially affixed, and 
no well-known arrangement is followed, a 
public museum, however rich in speci- 
mens, is little better than a splendid toy- 
room. Some of the professors at Geneva 
have private collections, and give lessons 
in’ mineralogy. M. Andrew de Luc has 
also a very extensive collection of shells, 
both recent and fossil ; and those who wish 
to study conchology, may take private 
lessons in his museum, where they 
may gain a knowledge of the system of 
Lamarck, and cannot fail to be pleased 
with the agreeable manners and intelli- 
gence of their instructor. M. De Luc is 
advantageously known by his able illustra- 
tion of Hannibal’s passage over the Alps, 
published about four years since. 
Bakewell’s Travels in the Tarentaise, §c. 
well atiended; but. when the morning 
and afternoon services ‘ate over, the 
Genevese, like the other inhabiiants of 
the continent, whether Catholic, ,.Cal- 
vinist, or Lutheran, indulge im their 
common recreations ; and the places of 
public amusement are open, but they 
close at an early hour, 'The majority of 
Catholics and Protestants (except in 
Great Britain) agree that the sabbatical 
observance of the first day of the week, 
farther than by devoting a part of it to 
public worship, is not enjoined either 
by the precepts or the example of the 
earliest Christians ; and even since the 
Reformation in England, royal. procla- 
mations were fixed upon our church- 
doors, commanding the people to play 
at foot-ball and other pastimes, after the 
service was over. 
BERNE, 
The country round. Berne is highly 
cultivated, varied, and rich; and the 
city, being considerably elevated above 
the river Aar, has ap imposing aspect. 
The public walks and grounds are kept 
in excellent order, and every thing here 
presents an appearance of neatness, 
comfort, and opulence. The most 
striking feature in the landscape is the 
northern range of the Swiss Alps, that 
separates the canton of Berne from, the 
Vallais, extending in a north-easterly 
direction above the valley of the Rhone, 
and running nearly parallel with the 
chain of the southern Alps that separate 
the Vallais from Italy. These. two 
great chains, which comprise the loftiest 
mountains in Eurepe, secm to blend 
confusedly into each other, as they ad- 
vance farther eastward, in approaching 
the Tyrol. The northern chain is seen 
from Berne, along a line of about sixty 
miles; and all its highest summits are 
most distinctly conspicuous, the bases 
of the mountains being more detached 
from each other than in the southern 
chain. Fifteen of these. magnificent 
mountains are seen at once, with their 
snowy summits towering from ten to 
twelve thousand feet above the sur- 
rounding country, without any inter- 
vening object to obstruct the view. The 
sublimity of the view, in the evening, 
when all these colossal masses are splen- 
dent with the rosy tint of the. setiing 
sun, resembling pyramids of ruby, is 
not to be described. The walks in the 
_church-yard, or on the trenches, at 
Berne, are good stations for observing 
the effects of sun-set on the Swiss Alps ; 
and the scene would richly reward the 
labour of a long journey to behold, were 
there 
