MAN UFACTU RES. Switzerland is a great manu facturing country, though it lacks coal, iron, and seaports. Its advantages are abundant water power, markets in the adjoining countries in which to buy raw materials and sell manufactured products, good connections with seaports, and the diligence, perseverance, and skill of the people. Nearly as many persons are engaged in manufactures as in agriculture. Large quantities of the manufacturing output are pro duced in the homes. The textile and metal in dustries are of greatest importance. The cotton industry, which competes even with English manufactures, is centred chiefly in the cantons of Zurich, Glarus, Saint Gall, and Appenzell. Swiss cotton cloths noted for fineness of texture and excellence of dyes and prints are sent all over the world. The well-known machine-made lace and embroidery industry of Switzerland employs about 10,000 machines and 17.000 workers in Saint Gall, Appenzell, and Neuchatel. The great centres of the silk industry are Basel, where all kinds of silk ribbons are produced, and Zurich, where dress goods are woven. Watch
making and machinery lead in the metal in dustries. The most important centres of watch making are Geneva, Chaux-de-Fonds. and Locle. The industry was once very prosperous, but it has suffered severely of late years from the competition of the machine-made watches of the United States. The Swiss. however, have re gained a large part of their export trade by the introduction of machinery and the manufacture of the cheaper grades of watches, which they pro duce by the hundreds of thousands every year, five-sixths of them being sold in foreign coun tries. The manufacture of jewelry and musical boxes, wood-carving, straw-plaiting. leather-mak ing, and tanning are also very important indus tries. The well-known machine works of Zurich, Winterthur, and Geneva export a considerable part of their output.