SCHAFFHAUSEN, a town of Switzerland, and capital of a canton of the same name. It is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, near the frontiers of Suabia. The streets are very irregular, and though the town contains many well-built houses, it is by no means handsome. Several of the houses which are generally four stories high, are painted in front with various figures; and one of them which we noticed, was completely covered with male and female figures. The principal public edifices and establishments are the church of St. John, which is a large building, with side aisles and a large square tower; an aca demy, in which there are seven professors and seve ral assistants; the market house, the hotel de ville, the public library and an arsenal built on a hill at the end of the town. It has six gates, three suburbs, and four churches. The principal manufactures of the place are cotton, silk, and leather; and there are several saw-mills near the town. A considerable transit trade has been long carried on here on account of the obstruction of the navigation of the Rhine by the great cataract of Lauffen, a little below the town. Goods brought down the river are consequently either carried to the interior or to Rhinfelden, where the Rhine again becomes navigable. The celebrated wooden bridge of Schaffhausen, which was burned by the French in 1799, has been fully described in our article BRIDG1., and represented in PLATES LXXXIX
and XC. It has been replaced by a plain uncovered wooden bridge 345 feet long and 21 wide, with two stone piers in the middle.
The falls of the Rhine, about three miles below Schaffhausen, called the cataract of Lauffen, from an old chateau situated beside the cataract, form one of the most magnificent sights to be seen in Switzerland. The whole body of the Rhine discharges itself over a rock about 60 feet high, being divided into three falls by large masses of rock rising in the middle. The noise of the falling waters is tremendous, and the quantity of spray is very great, rising into the air like smoke. In some parts of the fall the green co lour of the water has a fine effect; and, when we saw it in 1814, the purple tints of the western sky were finely reflected from the rising spray, while the fall itself was perfectly white. In an island immediately below the fall, there is a large dwelling-house, where an ingenious artist rcsides,who has a camera obscura for showing the falls. Close to the fall on the side opposite to Lauffen there is a snuff-mill. The popu lation of the town is about 6000. The canton ex tends over 170 square miles, and has a population of 32,000, the inhabitants being principally Calvinists.