CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



Assembly can alone make war and peace with 

 other countries. It chooses a federal council or 

 ministry of seven members, who conduct the 

 several departments of administration. At the 

 head of this executive board is the president of 

 the confederation, who is chosen yearly in a 

 united sitting of the assembly. Bern, with a 

 population, in 1880, of 44,000, is the federal 

 capital. 



The federal army, at the end of 1881, consisted 

 of 115,700 men of all arms; besides these, the 

 landwehr of the several cantons can be called out 

 by the federal authority. The federal revenue, in 

 1882, was 42,000,000 francs ; the expenditure, 

 rather less ; the debt is almost nominal. 



ITALY. 



Italy is partly a peninsular and partly an insular 

 country, lying between laL 36 35' and 46 40' 

 north, and long. 6 40' and 18 30' east It is 

 bounded on the north by Switzerland and Austria, 

 from which it is naturally separated by the 

 Alps ; on the east, by the Gulf of Venice ; on the 

 south, by the Mediterranean ; and on the west, by 

 the Mediterranean and France. Its area, includ- 

 ing that of the islands, is computed at 114,290 

 square miles. The largest and most important 

 of these islands are Sicily and the Lipari group, 

 Sardinia, and Elba. 



Superficially, Italy exhibits much diversity and 

 beauty. Guarded by the Alps, its northern fringe 

 exhibits all the features of the Swiss landscape ; 

 but this soon changes into scenery of the most 

 opposite description namely, the great plain of 

 Lombardy, which extends along the base of these 

 mountains for more than 250 miles, with an 

 average breadth of 50, is flat and low, but fertile 

 and well cultivated, and watered throughout by 

 the Po and its numerous affluents. The only 

 other mountain development is that of the Apen- 

 nines, which, branching from the Maritime Alps 

 in Genoa, ranges southward like a backbone or 

 spine through the centre of the peninsula, bifur- 

 cating at Venosa into two minor ridges the one 

 forming the heel, the other the fore-foot of the 

 fanciful boot. From the Apennines, which, in 

 Gran Sasso d'ltalia ('The Great Rock of Italy'), 

 attain an extreme height of 9520 feet, the country 

 slopes on both sides, intersected by streams and 

 valleys, and terminating near the coast in flattish 

 land, forming the 'Maremma' of Tuscany, the 

 Roman Campagna, the Pontine Marshes, &c. 



The principal rivers of the country are the Po, 

 with its numerous Alpine tributaries, flowing 

 through the great plain of Piedmont and Lom- 

 bardy, and falling by several mouths into the 

 Gulf of Venice ; the Adige, also flowing into the 

 Gulf of Venice ; the Tiber, with its small affluents, 

 rising in the Apennines, and falling into the 

 Mediterranean, navigable to Rome ; and the 

 Arno in Tuscany, navigable to Florence, and 

 connected with the Chiana, one of the tributaries 

 of the Tiber, by means of a canal. 



As regards its geology, granite, primary schists, 

 and limestones occur in the Alps, in the northern 

 extremity of the Apennines, and in their southern 

 bifurcations. The great central range of the 

 Apennines is said to consist chiefly of Jurassic 

 limestones, occasionally broken through by older 

 strata, flanked on the north by secondary rocks, 



214 



and on the south, downwards to the Mediter- 

 ranean, by recent tertiaries, replete with marine 

 remains. Through these tertiary sandstones and 

 marly limestones rise numerous volcanic hills, 

 but lately extinct, or still in operation. This 

 chain of volcanic action may be said to fringe the 

 whole of the Mediterranean sea-board, from the 

 Arno to Sicily exhibiting numerous dormant 

 craters, and the still active ones of Vesuvius, the 

 Lipari Isles, and Mount Etna. The principal 

 mineral products of the country are iron, from 

 Elba ; the finest statuary marble, from Carrara, in 

 Modena ; sulphur, from Sicily; alum and nitre, 

 from near Rome ; alabaster, from Tuscany ; puz- 

 zolana (a hydraulic cement), from Puzzuoli, near 

 Naples ; and borax. 



The climate of Italy has been greatly extolled p 

 but this is true only of certain localities, and under 

 certain seasons. The temperature may be gen- 

 erally mild, the atmosphere of unexampled trans- 

 parency, and the sky unclouded ; but certain 

 tracts as the Maremma of Tuscany, Campagna 

 di Roma, the Pontine Marshes, &c. are subject 

 to the fatal scourge of the malaria, while the 

 southern shores are occasionally visited by the 

 pestilential and enervating sirocco and simoom. 



The vegetable productions of Northern Italy 

 differ little from those of Southern France and the 

 valleys of Switzerland, already described ; the cul- 

 tivation of rice, and the more extensive growth 

 of the mulberry, being perhaps the main pecu- 

 liarities. In Southern Italy, the products, such 

 as the olive, the orange, the lemon, and the sugar- 

 cane, are more analogous to those of the south of 

 Spain receiving greater diversity from the suc- 

 cessive stages of the Apennines, which are clothed 

 in many places with forest-growth to the very 

 summit. 



Even in ancient times the inhabitants of Italy 

 were not one race. The north was Celtic ; the 

 region between the Arno and the Tiber, Etruscan ; 

 the shores of the southern half of the Peninsula, 

 Greek ; but the political predominance of the 

 Latin race through the conquests of Rome, in the 

 course of years obliterated all primitive distinc- 

 tions, and created a practical unity among the 

 population. The vicissitudes of history have not 

 materially altered this. The Lombard, the Byzan- 

 tine, the Arab, have left untouched the noble 

 impress of classic antiquity, and the language of 

 Cicero and Virgil in the modern form of Italian 

 still rules from the Alps to the Strait of Messina. 



The Roman Catholic religion is the national 

 religion, and is professed by nearly the whole 

 nation ; the only exceptions being the Protestant 

 Waldenses in Piedmont, the Greeks in the prin- 

 cipal commercial towns, and the Jews, who are 

 found chiefly in Rome, Leghorn, and Venice. Yet 

 here (as in Spain) there is intense hostility to the 

 priesthood among the educated and liberal party. 

 Infidelity is wide-spread, and even atheism is not 

 rare. The number of ecclesiastics is extraordi- 

 narily great; in May 1869, it was reckoned that 

 the proportion was seven to every thousand of the 

 population, which would give over 180,000, and 

 that was after the law which annihilated ecclesi- 

 astical jurisdiction and the privileges of the clergy 

 had been in operation for eight years. The con- 

 fiscation of monastic property by the new Italian 

 government has been fortunate for the cause of 

 education. The money thus obtained has been- 



