Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/682

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670 GENEVA watches, jewelry, and musical boxes, employ- ing about 3,000 persons, who make more than 100,000 watches a year, and work up annual- ly about 75,000 ounces of gold, 5,000 marks of silver, and $200,000 worth of precious stones. There are also manufactories of velvet, sill$ goods, India stuffs, hats, leather, cutlery, fire- arms, chronometers, and mathematical, musi- cal, and surgical instruments. Geneva became a free port in 1854. The transit trade is con- siderable, and the neighborhood of France and Italy gives rise to active smuggling. The for- warding, commission, and banking business, especially the latter, are of great magnitude. Geneva is also the principal telegraph station and the focus of the railways of Switzerland, and the central point of the federal postal and customs union. Calvin lived in Geneva, and Servetus was burned at the stake in the champ du bourreau, the ancient place of execution, outside the walls. John Knox was made a citizen of Geneva in 1558. Among the distin- guished persons born in the city are Jean Jacques Rousseau, Necker, the naturalists De Saussure, Deluc, Bonnet, Huber, and De Cari- dolle ; Dumont, the friend of Mirabeau and of Jeremy Bentham ; Sismondi the historian ; and Albert Gallatin, the American statesman. Sir Humphry Davy died and was buried in Ge- neva. Guizot the French statesman, whose mother found an asylum in Geneva, received his early education there. Geneva is supposed to have formed part of the territory of the Al- lobroges. It was subjected to the Romans about 122 B. 0. The city was burned du- ring the reign of Ilelipgabalus, and rebuilt by Aurelian, who gave it many privileges and called it Aurelianum Allobrogum. In the 5th century it was annexed to the possessions of the Burgundians, and in the 6th to the Frank- ish kingdom. The republic of Geneva origina- ted in the municipal institutions of the town, to which Charlemagne granted certain privi- leges, subordinate to the bishop, who was called prince of Geneva, and was an immediate feu- datory of the German empire. Dissensions oc- curred on many occasions between the citizens and the bishops on one side, and the counts of Genevois, who ruled the adjoining province of Savoy and claimed jurisdiction over Geneva, on the other. After the extinction of the line of the counts of Genevois, the dukes of Savoy were appointed their successors by the German emperor Sigismund (1422). Hence the claim of Savoy upon Geneva, from which the Gene- vans could only free themselves after several centuries by alliances with other Swiss states, and by the aid of the reformation. The bishop of Geneva was expelled in 1534. Through the zeal of William Farel, the new service of the reformed religion was established in August, 1535. But the old parties, the partisans of Savoy and the national party, reappeared un- der new forms and fomented discord. Farel prevailed upon Calvin, who came to Geneva in August, 1536, to remain there, and eventu- ally made himself the temporal as well as spiritual ruler of the town. Geneva became the leader of religion and the model of morals in Europe, the home of literature and learning, and the metropolis of Calvinism. An attack of Charles Emanuel of Savoy upon Geneva (De- cember, 1602) was gallantly repelled, and the victory then achieved is still commemorated. The independence of Geneva was solemnly recognized by the house of Savoy in 1754. The government of the city fell into the hands of patrician families, as everywhere else in Switz- erland, and the history of this century becomes a list of fierce and often bloody struggles to re- gain the old rights and privileges belonging to the people. In 1782 the administration party obtained the interference of France, Sardinia, and Bern, who sent troops into Geneva and op- pressed the democrats. In consequence, about 1,000 Genevese applied for permission to set- tle in Ireland, and the Irish parliament voted 50,000 to defray the expense of their journey, and gave them lands near Waterford ; but they soon abandoned the settlement. Other fugi- tives stirred up the French republicans to unite Geneva to France, and in 1798 the town was occupied by French troops and incorporated with France as a part of the department of L6man. After the overthrow of Napoleon it joined the renewed Swiss confederacy (March 20, 1815), and several places which had for- merly belonged to France and Savoy were added to its territory. A new and more lib- eral constitution was adopted in May, 1847. The Geneva convention of 1864 brought about an agreement among the European powers to consider the edifices and members of medi- cal departments strictly neutral in time of war. In 1868 naval wars were specially included in this treaty. The United States, however, did not join in it. In December, 1871, the court of arbitration on the Alabama question, con- sisting of five members appointed by the gov- ernments of the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil, met here. The deposed duke of Brunswick died in Geneva, Aug. 19, 1873, and left to the city his entire fortune, about 100,000,000 francs. GENEVA, Lake of, or Lake Leman (anc. Lacus Lemanus), the largest lake of Switzerland, ex- tending in the form of a crescent, with its horns toward the south, between France, on the south, and the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, and Valais. Its N. bank forms an arc about 53 m. long, exclusive of the sinuosities ; along its S. shore it measures 46 m. ; and its breadth varies from 8 or 9 m. in the middle to 4 m. near the E. and 1 m. at the "W. extremity; area, about 240 sq. m. Its greatest depth, which is on a line between Evian and Ouchy, is about 1,000 ft. ; its average depth is 400 ft. Its elevation above the sea is about 1,230 ft., but in summer, when the Alpine snows melt, it sometimes rises 6 or 8 ft. higher. At other periods it presents in particular parts of the lake, most commonly near Geneva, tho