20 Horticultural Jottanda 



There are numerous fountains, supplied by fourteen pumps, 

 each of 11 in. diameter, wrought by the rushing waters of the 

 Rhone, the whole of the machinery of which is made of wood. 

 Yet they discharge water at the height of 100 ft. The water- 

 wheel, which is, of course, undershot, is enclosed in a dark 

 wooden shed, standing, as the whole structure does, on wooden 

 piles in the water. The only light admitted into this shed is 

 through and a little above the surfoce of the water ; and the 

 flashing and foaming of the bright blue water in the darksome 

 gloom produces an effect almost magical. 



Two wooden bridges cross the Rhone, which divides the 

 town into two parts, and, with the adjacent extremity of Lake 

 Leman, insulates one of them. 



The principal street runs nearly parallel with one of these 

 branches, and near it a new quay is now being built for the 

 small craft, which ply upon the lake, to moor at. From this 

 lower part of the town there is but little view : but, on ascend- 

 ing to the terrace walks, at the most elevated part possible, 

 the view is extremely magnificent. It overlooks the whole 

 city with its picturesque and scattered roofs, and its cathedral 

 built on the spot where once stood a pagan temple of the 

 sun. The deep blue lake, stretching until the villages on its 

 beautiful shores dip below the horizon ; and with an atmo- 

 sphere so pure, that village and church, tower and hamlet, 

 piercing through the forestry, are seen as clear at forty miles' 

 distance as at five in our murkier clime. 



Jura's lofty ridge, clothed almost throughout with dark 

 pine forests, on one side, on the other the everlasting Alps, 

 enwrapped in clouds and snow, embrace the matchless land- 

 scape. Between them and the lake, on which many a sail 

 expands its placid wing, terraces of nature's sloping smile 

 with every variety of sylvan beauty and rural elegance, and 

 rejoice in an educated gentry and an intellectual and contented 

 peasantry. 



Geneva is wholly surrounded with walls and trenches, across 

 which, in one place, a light and elegant wire suspension bridge 

 is built ; in the neighbourhood of which is the observatory, a 

 small building, surmounted by two hemispherical domes of tin. 

 The use of tin, that is, tinned sheet iron, is universal through- 

 out Switzerland, for covering roofs, for eave shoots, trunks, 

 &c. ; and nothing can show more fully the exquisite purity 

 and great dryness of the air, than that, in such exposed situ- 

 ations, it retains its fine silvery lustre for years. By a 

 mistaken and miserable parsimony, tin has been of late occa- 

 sionally used for such purposes in these countries, even for 



