Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1857-1858, 1857-09-05
william Cullen Bryant In Switzerland.
We find the following letter from Mr.. BRYANT in
the New 7 ork Post:

We find the following letter from Mr.. BRYANT in
the New York Post:
BERN, SWITZERLAND, Aug. 1, 1851
The Swiss among the most ingenious of the
European nations; they possess in a high degree
the constructive faculty. you have only TO look st
their houses to be convinced Of this. II seems to
me that they are the best carpenters in the world
The Swiss peasantry are lodged, believe. in more
spacious dwellings than any other peasantry In Ed
rope-dwellngs admirably suited to their climate
as they are picturesque. Undtr their overshadow-
ing roofs, which form shelter from their hot SUBS
in summer, they hang the outer wall With balconies
and galleries, which form passages above the deep
SHOWS OF their winters. The ends of the beams and
ralters and the braces are shaped into ornamental
projections, so that what would otherwise be the de-
tormity, becomes the grace of the building. The
Swiss were long ago the beet bridge builders in Eu-
rope, Of which the bridge at Schafhausen, destroy
ed by the French in the latter part of the last
tury, constructed entirely of timber with span of
365 feet yet without any support except at the two
ends, was a remarkable example. Ia the long win
tiers OF the Alpine regions the peasants employ
themselves in carving with their penknives figures
and images aud objects of various kinds out OF wood
with ali the patience and nicely of Chinese arfis-
ians, and hundred times the elegance. On the
bigh-roads in the valleys of the Bernese Overland,
the traveller will have the children Of the herdspen
trottiDg beside him. Offering him for a single franc
the miniature of Swiss cottage carved with all the
decacy of frost work
Il is clear that if all this dexterity and patience
we're directed to the great branches Of manufacture
the Swi-s must excel. 1t is so, n fact. l have
just ONE from looking at exhibition of Swiss in
duttry now open this beautiful city. An intelli-
gent American gentleman went through il with me
who vas much surprised as myself both at the
variety Of the manufactures and their excellence
The spectacle to the more interesting be-
the manufactures of Switzerland prosper with
out any Of those helps which, in the opinion of some
are indspensable-witho prohibitory or protec-
tive duties, or, indeed, high duties of any kind
They prosper, too, in country surrounded by pow
erful governments which yet adhere to the protec-
tive system, and on which the Swiss have never
thought it for their advantage to retaate
IL must be admitted that the Swiss have some i'm
portant natural advantages for manufacturing pur-
suits. Their mountains abound with ores of the
useful metals enormous fol ests are at hand to sup
ply the furnaces in which these ores are smelted
and the torrents which rush down the mountain
sides WELD the hammers by which the metals
beaten into plates and bars. calculating Yankee
would be shocked to see the proportion of water
power in this country running to waste Mills might
be built the Swiss streams to manufacture for
the world, without much disfguriDg the grand as
pect OF Swiss scenery. In going up any of their
mountains, you hear the bells of the herds for
vast distance around you. million of neat cattle
are fed in the pastures, with million and quarter
Of sheep and goats, and the woods which supply
fuel for the FORCES and foundries, furnish bark for
tanning the skins of these animals. In the forest
cantons the driver of your carriage will point out
from time to time, in some gorge of the mountains
where stream comes down through the forest a
large building in which glass is made The manu-
factureT in Switzerland has had the advantage from
the first, that he has tax to pay on the crude
material which he employs.
was not therefore, uDprepared to in the
exhibition at BeTne a credtable display of objects
wrought of iron and other useful metals Here
Were fire engines, locomotives for railways which
the people of the Confederation are industriously
building 10 all parts of the country; engines for
the steamers on the lakes, and machines for calico
printing-al of admirable workmanship; here
for kitchen and parlor OF cast or sheet
iron, which certainly 10 hnish il not in other res
poets, we're beyond what produce In our coun-
try; here were busts of figures in cast iron, we'll
designed, OF smoothness OF surface equal to por-
celaln, and equal precision OF outline. Geneva had
sent muskets, rifles and fowling pieces, beautiful
ly wrought, and there were samples Of cutlery
from the workshops of Thurgau, Aargau, Bern and
Giarus, which might almost bear comparison with
the cutlery of Great Britain. The Swiss make
their own pins at the mills at Schaiihausen Of
their watches / need say nothing, since is that
branch of industry they work with greater nicely
and cheapness than the people of any other coun.
try, and even furnish a large proportion of the
mechanism of what are called English watches.
Five cantons OF Switzerland employ in watch max
ing thirty-six thousand persons.
Beside the iron stoves, there were porcelain ones
white porcelan-of elegant FORMS a much pleas
anter and more ceanly piece of furniture than the
iron ones we have at home. / cannot say much
for the samples OF table porcelain in the exhibition;
they were of the homeiest kind and had no preten-
sons to elegance. OF the palmer kinds of glass
there respectable share, and of elegant plate
glass few samples. Switzerland furnishes the bot
ties for her own wines and mineral waters. The
tanners Of the country have by no means an idle
time Of it, it l might judge from the quantity of
leather, including morocco and patent leather and
the exquistely tanned skins of the ehamois goat
with which the walls OF one Of the yWer rooms
hung
What most surprised me the exhibition was
the perfection which the silk manufacture had at
tanned The silk cloths of Zurich, both light and
heavy, were of excellent quality, though they
wanted the beauty of the French tissues, but the
ribbons of Basic and Zurich vie with those of
France in texture, lustre, beauty OF design and
briaDcy of color. Several ribbon looms were in
the exhibition-lght, ingenious machines-in one
of which landscape, and in another a bouquet Of
flowers, of different colors and shapes was woven
The housewives, suppose, would expect me TO
mention the beautiful sewing silks of Aargua.
There are woolen mills in Zurick and else where
but the quality Of the goods produced is not fac;
the Swiss sheep, believe rather coarse ooled
The hair of the goat is wrought into an elegant
and shOwey tissue-paids generally, and of bril-
liant colors The cotton cloths are strong and 81
vcablt; the printed cottons are Of two kinds-the
caicoes and the mnslns; the calicoes ugly and the
musns delicate and beautiful. Fields OF Aux often
often meet the eye in Switzerland, and acres of
linen bleaching by the streams There
were many good samples OF linen in the exhibition
One ofthe most remarkable departments of Swiss
industry ID embroidery and of this there were ma
ny superb samples. In one of these, che maidens
of Apenzel had embroidered their Jungfrau on
an immense curtain of white muslin. Another
from the canton of St. Gallen had flowers in high
relief the petals raised from the muslin and turning
back against il as 10 a carving. In other samples
were fountains and forests; others were of afchi-
tectural design, intermingled with graceful hu-
man figures. There are in Apenzell aud St. Gal
len six thousand persons who live by this sort Of
needlework.
OF course there were many samples Of carving
in wood, but these we're excelled by the carvings
IN ivory-an art which seems TO have sprung nat
uraly from the netional skill 10 Wo0d-carvng.
Among these ! noticed little group OF trees,
wrought with such decacY that il seemed as Il
the foliage must tremble and turn with the wind.
In the north they slay animals for their fur; but
the Swiss finds sui stitute Tor fur Ia the skins of
the birds which haunt his likes. There we're uu-
merous samples OF mufs, tippets aud cuffs formed
of the material; some OF them OF a silvery white
ness, others nearly black, all of them extremely
light, smooth and glistening. The names of TIE
birds which had been made 70 Weld this singular
contribution 10 the national fair were annexed 10
the articles, they were mostly water fowl Of the
Rrebe family, aud the kinds related 20 H. These
we're the mergHs HiergaHser, the as,as fsrina. aud
others which / do not remember.
Among the froliea OF Swiss ingenuity I noticed
a group OF stuffed skins, the wild quadrupeds aud
native birds OF Switzerland, 50 skuliully adjusted
that one could scarcely believe that they were NOT
slivs On the shelves OF What seeraed uonnt.fu