SWITZERLAND (Ger. Schweiz; Fr. Suisse; It. Svizzera). The Swiss Confederation consists of 22 cantons with a republican and federal Constitution. It is situated in central Europe and bounded north by Baden and Wurttemberg (Germany), east by Vorarlberg and Tirol (Austria) with the small principality of Liechtenstein lying between Vorarlberg and Switzerland, south east and south by Trentino, Lombardy and Piedmont (Italy), and south-west, west and north-west by the departments of Haute Savoie, Jura, Ain, Doubs, Haute-Rhin (France).
In summary, Switzerland of to-day consists of three great river valleys (RhOne, Rhine and Aar), lying to the north of the main chain of the Alps and including within their Swiss basins all the region between the Alps and the Jura. In addition, the wedge shaped canton of Ticino runs south from the St. Gotthard massif and drains to the Po, whilst in the extreme east a tongue of the Grisons canton drains north-east via the Engadine, into the Danube. The Rhone and Rhine valleys are shut off from that of the Aar by the great northern ridge of the Bernese Oberland and Todi Alps. The Aar valley is wide and undulating, but the upper Rhine and Rhone have cut deep trenches in the structural depression which separates the great parallel chains. The main chain of the Alps provides the loftiest wholly-Swiss summit (15, 217 ft.) in the crowning Dufourspitze of Monte Rosa, though the Dom (14,942 ft.) in the Mischabel range, immediately north of Monte Rosa, is the highest entirely Swiss mountain mass. The highest summit in the northern parallel ridge is the Finsteraar horn (14,026 ft.) in the Bernese Oberland, while the lowest level within the confederation is on the Lago Maggiore (646 ft.).
The geological build of the Alps (q.v.) has been proved to be exceedingly complex; the contorted, folded, and even over f olded recent rocks have been fractured, exposing old crystalline cores to denudation; the Jura (q.v.) are much less complicated
in their folding and in their exposures. Much of the central hum mocky plain is covered with undisturbed very recent rocks of Oligocene and Miocene age, many of which are marine deposits formed at a period when an arm of the Mediterranean spread up the present Rhone course along the outer border of the Alps as far east as Austria. These deposits are concealed in many parts of the plain by the most recent glacial and alluvial accumulations.
Many of her rivers, with their Alpine origin, tend to seasonal overflows which have necessitated artificial embankment. The most important control scheme was that of Conrad Escher of Zurich (later Conrad von der Linth) who, in 1807-27, turned the turbulent Linth into Walensee, from which it emerges as a canal ized stream. An earlier (1714) successful work was the diversion of the troublesome Kander into the Lake of Thun, where it is now placidly building an extensive fertile delta.
The lakes of Switzerland are very numerous : the largest, Geneva (S.W.) and Constance (N.E.) are on the frontiers and are not wholly Swiss. Neuchatel (921 sq.m.) is the largest wholly-Swiss lake. About 3o sq.m. at the north end of Lago Maggiore (143 sq.m.) belongs to Switzerland; next in order of size are Lucerne, ZUrich, about half of the Swiss-Italian Lake of Lugano (2o sq.m.), Thun, Brienz, Morat, the Wallen, and Sempach (51 sq.m.) ; no others exceed 4 sq. miles. Eleven of these lakes are in the Aar basin, two (Maggiore and Lugano) are in the Po basin, and Geneva is the great Rhone filter. The lakes of the Swiss portion of the Inn basin are small; the largest are Sils (i1 sq.m.), and the still smaller, slightly lower and adjacent Silvaplana. Many small mountain lakes are of interest, such as the dreary Daubensee (7,264 ft. alt.) near to the Gemmi pass; the extremely beautiful Oeschinensee (5,223 ft. alt.) mirroring the snowy BlUmlis Alp, and the remarkable, though sometimes empty Marjelensee (7,766 ft. alt.) on which float miniature icebergs from the Great Aletsch glacier.