Lake Wetter Lake Hjelmar Total.. In the budget for 1876 the revenue and expenditures were estimated at 95,676,013 crowns. The public debt, at the end of 1874, amounted to 130,477,920 crowns. The commercial navy was, according to the shipping list of 1875, as follows: 2,467 sailing-vessels, of 119,604 new lasts; and 461 steam vessels, of 17,958 new lasts, and 20,421 horse-power. The navy, which was entirely reorganized in 1866-'67, consisted, at the beginning of 1875, of 34 steamers, 10 sailing - vessels, 87 galleys: total, 131 vessels, of 412 guns. The navy was officered and manned according to the reorganization of August 27, 1875, as follows: 1. By the "Royal Navy;" 2. By the "Reserve; 99 3. By the "Béväring." The Royal Navy comprises 2 rear-admirals, 6 com manders, 20 commodore captains, 43 captains, 69 first and second lieutenants, and 5,991 sailors, carpenters, and petty officers. The reserve consists of 76 officers, 30 petty officers, and 15 engineers, and the "Béväring" of 40,000 men. The aggregate length of railroads in operation, on September 1, 1875, was 3,600 kilometres; of those in course of construction, 2,600 kilometres (1 kilometre = 0.62 mile). The number of post-offices in 1873 was 641. The revenue amounted to 3,170,561 riksdalers; the expenditures to 2,869,986. The aggregate Swedish. Norwegian. Foreign.. Total. BERGEN, NORWAY. The area of Norway is 122,280 square miles. The population was, in 1874, estimated at 1,796,000. The following towns had, in 1870, a population of more than 10,000 inhabitants: Christiania, 66,657 (in 1872 about 70,000, and with the suburbs 80,000); Bergen, 30,252; Drontheim, 20,858; Stavanger, 16,053; Drammen, 15,458; Christiansand, 11,468. The revenue in 1874 amounted to 9,053,000 specie dalers (1 specie daler = $1.11), and the expen 1 Swedish last = 8.27 tons. The aggregate length of railroads in operation at the end of 1874 was 502 kilometres. The aggregate length of telegraph-lines 6,415 kilometres; of wires, 10,276 kilometres. The Swedish Riksdag met on January 16th. The presidents elected were, in the First Chamber, Lagebjelke and Asker; and, for the Second, Lagerstrale and Nyk. On the 18th the session was formally opened by the King. The transactions of the Riksdag were of no great importance. On March 3d the First Chamber rejected the Government bill providing for the changes in the fundamental law of those provisions relating to military affairs. On April 10th both Chambers adopted a resolution to reorganize the Council of State. The Second Chamber, on May 15th, rejected the military bill, demanding an army of 180,000 men and a term of service of from twelve to seventeen and a half months, and at the same time adopted a law fixing the strength of the army at 80,000 men and the term of service at ninety days. The session closed on the 26th of May. The elections for members of the Riksdag took place during September; the members of the First Chamber, 54 in number, and the entire Second Chamber, 198 members, were voted for. Of these the Landmanna, or Farmer party, obtained 10 in the First Chamber, a gain of eight, and 130 in the Second Chamber, being a loss of six. The Storthing of Norway was opened on February 2d. The speech from the throne contained the following passages: The revenues of the state have come in quite rapidly, and especially the duties have reached a figure, proof that the consumption of the country has been during the past year, never yet before attained, a unusually large. Together with the commercial progress, the general raising of prices continues, and and makes the fixed salaries, which were regulated therefore present again to the Storthing the same under different circumstances, insufficient. I will motion for the increase of salaries of persons in the service of the state, which has already been partly adopted. A motion will also be introduced to increase the salary of the lower military classes as made necessary by the circumstances. The demand for new railroads, and the willingness to make sacrifices for them, continue undiminished. A commission has been appointed to deliver an opinion on various questions connected with this important matter. I shall present a bill to the Storting providing for the complete reform of the monetary system, as laid down in the law of June 4, 1873. In connection herewith it will be moved that Norway join the monetary convention existing between Denmark and Sweden. Our relations with foreign powers continue to be of the most friendly nature. In March the Storthing adopted the bill introduced by the Government, joining the Skandinavian Monetary Convention. It adjourned on June 12th. On May 24th the King and Queen left on a visit to Berlin, where, having passed through Copenhagen on the 25th, they arrived on the 28th. (See GERMANY.) In the beginning of July the King also paid a visit to St. Petersburg. (See RUSSIA.) SWITZERLAND, a republic of Central Europe, consisting of twenty-two cantons, three of which are divided each into two independent half-cantons. The supreme legislative and executive authority is vested in a Parliament of two Chambers, the Ständerath, or State Council, and the Nationalrath, or National Council. The first is composed of fortyfour members, two for each canton. The Nationalrath consists of 135 representatives of the Swiss people, chosen in direct election, at the rate of one deputy for every 20,000 souls. Both Chambers united are called the Federal Assembly, and as such represent the supreme Government of the republic. The chief executive authority is deputed to a Federal Council, consisting of seven members, elected for three years by the Federal Assembly. The President and Vice-President of the Federal Council, who are the first magistrates of the republic, are elected by the Federal Assembly for the term of one year, and are not reëligible till after the expiration of another year. The President of the Federal Council for the year 1875 was J. J. Scherer, of the canton of Zurich; Vice-President, E. Borel, of the canton of Neufchâtel. President of the National Council for the session of the Federal Assembly, beginning in June, 1875, J. J. Stämpfli, of the canton of Bern; Vice-President, E. Frey, of the canton of Basel Country. President of the State Council, G. Ringier, of the canton of Aargau; Vice-President, R. Droz, of the canton of Neufchâtel. Area of Switzerland, 15,992 square miles Population, according to the census of 1870, 2,669,147, of whom 1,566,347 (58.7 per cent.) were Evangelical; 1,084,369 (40.6 per cent.) Catholics; 11,435 members of Christian sects, and 6,996 Jews. The total revenue of the Confederation in the year 1874 amounted to 46,844,809 francs; the expenditures to 45,586,171 francs. The budget for 1875 estimated the revenue at 39,516,000 francs; the expenditures at 39,766,000 francs. The liabilities of the republic amounted, in 1874, to 30,635,552; as a set-off against which there is Federal property amounting to 31,783,303 francs. The Federal army consists of the "Bundesauszug" and the "Landwehr." The Bundesauszug is composed of the men from twenty to thirty-two years of age, and the Landwehr of the men from the thirty-third to the completed forty-fourth year. The nominal strength of the armed forces of the republic was as follows, on January 1, 1876: The aggregate length of Swiss railways, on January 1, 1875, was 1,638 kilometres (1 kilometre = 0.62 mile), and in October, 1875, about 2,000 kilometres; that of telegraph-lines, in 1873, 5,843 kilometres; of wires, 14,169 kilometres. The Post-Office in Switzerland forwarded 48,519,764 inland, and 14,733,122 foreign letters, in 1874, making a total of 63,252,884 letters. The number of newspapers forwarded was 45,651,344, and of packages 19,925,200. The receipts of the Post-Office, in 1874, were 14,465,622 francs, and the expenditures 13,932,545 francs. On February 13th the Federal Council appointed the following as division commanders: Aubert in Geneva, Lecomte in Lausanne, Meyer in Bern, Merian in Basel, Rothplass in Aarau, Egloff in Tagerweilen, Vögeli in Zurich, and Gingins in Lasarraz. The Federal Assembly met on March 8th, and adjourned again on the 20th. Both Houses were mainly occupied with the religious question, the various appeals of the Bernese Catholics in favor of the extruded parish priests having come before them in constitutional course, after rejection by the Federal Executive, as well as another set arising out of the deposition of Bishop Lachat, by the Diocesan Council of the northwestern cantons which form the bishopric of Basel. In the former case, the decree of the Bernese Government, forbidding the nonjuring priests to reside within the district in which they formerly officiated, was represented by Catholic members as an act of tyranny, and one, indeed, committed ultra vires by the authority of any single canton. In the case of the ex-Bishop of Basel, his advocates laid stress on the gravamen of the offenses charged against him being simply the acknowledgment of the infallibility dogma, which he but accepted in common with the rest of the episcopate. These views were combated by the speakers on the other side, upon the facts of the cases themselves; but the main argument against the appeals was, that there appeared to be no proper constitutional grounds for overruling the decisions of the executive, that the religious disputes appealed on were matters within the privileges of the cantons to settle. On the Lachat affair, the vote finally taken in the Lower House was 80 to 24 against the appeal; and the Council of Cantons supported this on division, by the smaller majority of 20 to 15. As to the Bernese question, it was not pressed to a division in the Upper House, which accepted the vote of 74 to 25 against the appeal in the National Council as decisive. On April 7th the Federal Council, in accordance with the law which provides for a vote by the people on all bills passed by the Federal Assembly on which it is demanded by 30,000 voters, or the governments of eight cantons, fixed upon May 23d as the day on which the civil marriage and the electoral laws were to be submitted to the vote of the people. For demanding the popular vote on the former, 107,476, and for a vote on the latter, 108,325 signatures had been obtained, thus far exceeding the required 30,000. At the election on May 23d the civil marriage law was adopted by a vote of 212,854 against 204,700, while the electoral law was rejected by a vote of 206,805 against 202,140. The Federal Assembly had another short session from June 7th to July 3d, in which the principal business transacted was the decision on the Bernese question. The Assembly met again on September 5th, and adjourned on September 18th. The newly-elected Assembly met on December 6th, and on December 10th elected the Federal Council for the year 1876. The following are the new members of the Council: Welti (Aargau), Schenck (Bern), Scherer (Zurich), Ruchonnet (Vaud), Heer (Glarus), Anderwert (Thurgau), and Hammer (Solothurn). The Council elected Welti, Federal-President; and Heer, Vice-President; Numa Droz was afterward elected in place of M. Ruchonnet, who declined. On December 24th the assembly adjourned to March, 1876. On January 30, 1874, the Executive Council of the canton of Bern had issued a decree expelling ninety-seven priests from the territory of the district for refusing to obey the laws. An appeal for the abrogation of this decree was addressed to the Federal Council, and was rejected by that body on March 26, 1874. The Catholics then appealed, in March, 1875, from the decision of the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly, invoking the provision of the new constitution, adopted since that decision, which declares that no canton shall expel a citizen from its territory. In the discussion that followed it was stated that another appeal had been made to the Federal Council, raising this question of the applicability of the new constitution to the case, and a delegate from Bern moved that, in view of this fact, no action should be taken by the Assembly until the decision of the Federal Council had been given upon this new point. This motion was agreed to. On March 27th the Federal Coun cil issued an order, inviting the Government of Bern to report, at as early a day as possible, whether it proposed to continue in force for any considerable period of time the decree in question; and, if so, to communicate the reasons which, in its view, would render necessary the further maintenance of such an exceptional measure. On May 31st the Federal Council pronounced the decree of expulsion incompatible with the existing constitution, and directed the Government of Bern to revoke it within two months. On June 13th the canton appealed to the Federal Assembly from this decision. This body sustained the decision of the Executive, but extended the time for the revocation of the decree until the middle of November. The Catholic Board of Education of St.-Gall passed a resolution, on January 29th, transferring the religious instruction to the schoolteachers, as the priests had not submitted to the exclusion of the dogma of infallibility and the syllabus from this instruction; and, if the priests should refuse such children communion and confession, Old Catholic priests were to be appointed. On January 3d the Council of the canton of Geneva repealed that article of the new religious law which prescribed that the vote of at least one-third of the Catholic voters was necessary to elect the parish priests. In the cantons of Bern and Geneva the church councils, in the beginning of February, gave permission to the Old Catholics to use the Catholic churches. The elections for the Grand Council of the canton of Ticino took place in February. The result was a victory for the Catholics, who, dur ing the war of the Sonderbund in 1847, and ever since, had been out of power. The elections for the Federal Assembly took place on October 31st. The result did not change the complexion of either Chamber, the Liberals retaining a majority in both Houses. A terrible storm visited the canton of Geneva and the French frontier on July 8th. It was accompanied with hail, and the stones were of enormous size. The glass in all the windows in the district where the storm raged was demolished, and many persons were killed and injured. Twenty-two hundred workmen, employed on the St.-Gothard Tunnel, struck work on July 29th, and became riotous. They gathered at the northern entrance of the tunnel and blocked it. The Swiss Government sent a body of troops to the spot, who dispersed the rioters, killing four of them and wounding a large number of others. TELEGRAPHY. Among the more recent inventions and improvements in this branch of applied science, the duplex and quadruplex systems of telegraphy, and the American automatic telegraph, are the most important, having already wrought a partial revolution in this mode of sending intelligence, with promise of total and speedy displacement of the comparatively slow and costly system now in common use. The duplex telegraph, brought for the first time into practical working shape by Mr. Joseph B. Stearns, of Boston, makes it possible to send two dispatches over a single wire in opposite directions at the same time. Attempts to do this have from time to time been made ever since 1853, but without any practical success until Mr. Stearns took up the problem in 1868. It has now been brought into use on several lines; and it has also been found, as will be seen when we come to speak of the quadruplex telegraph, that the principle which underlies the invention is capable of very great extension. To understand the duplex telegraph it must be borne in mind that the galvanic battery gives birth to a force which returns in a circuit to where it was generated, and accelerates the liberation of more force, being, like a steamengine, employed partly in fanning its own fire. This circuit can be performed much more easily through great lengths of some substances, such as the earth and metals, than through very small spaces of others, as the air and the dilute acid of the battery. Galvanic electricity is, therefore, strictly confined in a sort of millround; or, for our present purposes, it may best be represented by water flowing through such a system of water-courses as is shown in the annexed cut. We will suppose them to FIG. 1. include a reservoir and a secondary circuit at each end. Let the reservoirs A and B have water pumped into them by force-pumps, and distributed by them to both the main and secondary circuits, in equal quantities and in the direction of the arrows, so as to maintain the water-wheels X and Win the same positions. The highest points in the system must be supposed to be at the front of the reservoirs, and the lowest at the back of them. If an additional volume of water come from A, being equally divided on each side of W, it will not move that wheel, but it will move VOL. XV.-46 A T the wheel X by destroying the balance which previously existed there. But, if a similar extra volume be at the same time sent from B, the pressure in that part of the circuit between W and X will overcome the opposing forces at each of the points, and both wheels will be worked, each virtually by the distant reservoir and not by its own. If we substitute galvanic batteries for the reservoirs, wires for the water-courses, and electricity for the water, this gives us the principle of the duplex telegraph. In In the quadruplex telegraph, the invention of Mr. Thomas A. Edison, of Newark, N. J., the aim, as in the duplex, is to allow of several persons using the same wire at one time. fact, the arrangement may be used as a duplex telegraph if required, so that the wire is by it made susceptible of either double or quadruple employ. The instruments used are modifications of those of the Morse system. The "key" is shown in Fig. 3, and the changes made to adapt it to the uses of the quadruplex telegraph may be understood from Fig. 2. The essential part of the receiving instrument is an electro-magnet, which consists of a bent bar of soft iron, surrounded at each end by a coil of wire connected with the wire of the line. The current, passing through these coils, communicates to the iron core magnetic properties, and enables it to attract another piece of iron or steel called its armature; but, when the current ceases, the magnetism ceases also, and a spring too weak to neutralize it-draws back the armature. It is shown in section at M, in Fig. 2. When the armature and the lever carrying it are discarded, and instead of them a jointed tongue of steel, as at PM, is inserted between the poles of the magnet, it will be unaffected by the current except when a change occurs in its direction. It is then called a polarized magnet. Its use will be explained a little further on. One of the keys, K, in the diagram, is provided with a spring, which is in contact with the metal of the key when this latter is in its normal position, and maintains across the key a circuit including a portion of the battery b'. But when the key is depressed the spring comes in contact with a screw, to which another circuit is connected, applying the full strength of the battery to the line. The circuit across the key is never broken, because the spring remains in contact with the arm of the key until it begins to press against the screw. This key works the magnet M, which has its retractile spring so adjusted as to be overcome only by the full intensity of the current when the key is down. The other key, K', is for changing the direction of the current, and working the polarized magnet, |