TOPOGRAPHY. Switzerland is the most moun tainous country of Europe, three-fourths of its area being covered with mountains. The central and southern parts ore occupied by the Swiss Alps, w•lhich spread over nearly three-fifths of the entire area. The Jura Mountains cover the northwestern portion of the country. Between the Jura Mountains and the Alps is the Swiss high plain, where most of the inhabitants live surrounded by these great natural ramparts. The Jura ?fountains form a generally southwest northeast curve. Their summits do not ordinarily exceed 5000 feet, the loftiest in Switzerland be ing the Dole, 5505 feet. The folded Juras have fifteen main folds. nearly parallel with one an other, none of them extending the whole length of the district. Between the ranges are long valleys, transverse gorges connecting one val ley with another; and these features produce scenery of great beauty and variety. Many fine forests of firs cover the upper slopes and an abundance of rich pastures is spread below them, mingling with the fields and vineyards which extend down to the margin of the small lakes that occupy some of the valley bottoms.
The central plain is steeply walled in between the Juras and the Alps. It is about 1300 feet in general elevation. It is a plain chiefly in con trast with the mountains around it and in other countries would be called an elevated region, thickly studded with picturesque hills. It ex tends in a southwest and northeast direction from the Lake of Geneva across Lake Constance to Wurttemberg, and has an average width of about thirty miles. Its hills are due chiefly to un equal erosion, the coarse gravel brought down from the Alps (known as `Nagelflue,' often ce mented into a hard conglomerate) having been aide especially to resist the destructive action of time and weather. The debris from the Alps, with which it is covered to a great depth, forms its soil, but the disintegrated granites and gneisses contribute ton large a proportion of sand and pebbles to make the soil very rich in plant food, though the conditions are more favorable when there is a considerable admixture from the limestone mountains.
The Alps rising from this central plateau are three times as high as the Juras. The utmost complexity appears to mark the arrangement of the towering ranges, masses, spurs, and precipices of the Swiss Alps. The group of Saint Gotthard, however, is the central knot of this mountain world. It is the middle point from which radiate on almost every side the mighty Alpine ranges that fill the centre and the south of Switzerland. The ranges of Ticino from the south, the mountain masses extending from the Simplon in the southwest, the Bernese Oberland from the west, the Tiflis group from the north, the Thdi chains (the Alps of Glarus and Schwyz) from the northeast, and the mighty complex of the Grisons from the southeast, all converge upon Saint Gotthard. This group is also a great hydrographic centre. The head waters of the Rhine flow from its eastern and of the Rhone from its western sides, cutting the Swiss Alps into a northern and a southern half.
The Reuss rises from its northern and the Ticino Irma its southern slopes.
The Swiss Alps are the middle part of the great highland region of South Europe, which extends in the form of a bow from the Gulf of Genoa to the plain of Hungary. The southern Swiss Alps (south of the Rhine and Rhone) be gin in the west in the splendid glacier-cov ered chain of the Pennine Alps, which have their culmination in ?lonte Rosa (15,217 feet), in ferior in height only to Mont Blanc in France. The Misehabelhitrner, the Weissborn, the Breit horn, and the incomparable pinnacle of the Mat terhorn are among the Pennines which extend eastward to the Simplon. Over thirty summits ex ceed 12.000 feet. East of the Simplon extend the Lepontine Alps, the water parting between the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po, with many valleys deeply excavated by torrents and crossed by a number of important passes to Italy. East of the Ticino Valley and between the Rhine and the Inn are the Alps of the Orisons, whose snows chiefly feed tributaries of the Rhine, many summits ex ceeding 10.000 feet. Lastly, south of the Inn and the most eastern group of the southern Swiss Alps are the magnificent peaks of Bernina. whose culminating point is 13,288 feet above the sea. These southern Alps are formed of crystalline rocks, while the northern Swiss Alps are chiefly of limestone stupendously folded.
The chains of the northern Swiss Alps are separated one from another by three deep val leys: (1) that of the Aar with the lakes of Brienz and Thun, which carries nearly all the drainage of North Switzerland to-the Rhine; (2) the valley of the Reuss with Lake Lucerne; and (3) the Walensee and Lake Zurich. Thus sep arated the four great groups of the northern Alps are: First, the Bernese Alps (Oberland), the water parting between the Aar and the Lip per Rhone, which include the greatest snow moun tains of the Alps; first among them the crystal line summits of the Finsteraarho•n (14,026 feet), the Jungfrau (13,672), Minch (13.40), Eiger. Wetterhorn. Schreckhorn, and others, a compact mass of snowy and rugged peaks with the Aletsch glacier, 16 miles long, the largest of Switzerland's WO glaciers. More than 20 of these summits rise over I2.000 feet above sea level. Second, the Tit!is Alps. to the cast of the 1:ernesc Oberland. Third. the Alps of Glarus and Schwyz, also known by the name of Omit- highest summit in the centre, Ti;t1i (11.887 feet). The Iligi (59011 feet), commanding one of the magnificent views of the Alps. stands in the northwest corner of this group on the shores I if Lake Lueenie. Fourth, the lower Alps, between lakes Constance and 'Zurich. which nowhere reach the snow line. 11n the whole the southern slopes of the Swiss Alps are steep. but the northern slopes are more gradual. Glaciers and perpetual snow are spread over Stio square miles, or one-twentieth of the area of Switzerland. See Ates.