1.
Aare
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The Aare or Aar is a tributary of the High Rhine and the longest river that both rises and ends entirely within Switzerland. There are more than 40 hydroelectric plants along the course of the Aare River, the rivers name dates to at least the La Tène period, and it is attested as Nantaror Aare valley in the Berne zinc tablet. The name was Latinized as Arula/Arola/Araris, the Aare rises in the great Aargletschers of the Bernese Alps, in the canton of Bern and west of the Grimsel Pass. The Finsteraargletscher and Lauteraargletscher come together to form the Unteraargletscher, which is the source of water for the Grimselsee. The Oberaargletscher feeds the Oberaarsee, which flows into the Grimselsee. Right after Innertkirchen it is joined by its first major tributary, less than 1 kilometre later the river carves through a limestone ridge in the Aare Gorge. It is here that the Aare proves itself to be more than just a river, a little past Meiringen, near Brienz, the river expands into Lake Brienz. Near the west end of the lake it receives its first important tributary. It then runs across the plain of the Bödeli between Interlaken and Unterseen before flowing into Lake Thun. Near the west end of Lake Thun, the river receives the waters of the Kander. Lake Thun marks the head of navigation, on flowing out of the lake it passes through Thun, and then flows through the city of Bern, passing beneath eighteen bridges and around the steeply-flanked peninsula on which the Old City is located. The river soon changes its flow for a due westerly direction. From the upper end of the lake, at Nidau, the river issues through the Nidau-Büren Channel, also called the Aare Canal, and then runs east to Büren. A short distance further, below Brugg it receives first the Reuss, its major tributary, and shortly afterwards the Limmat, its second strongest tributary. It now turns to north, and soon becomes itself a tributary of the Rhine, the Rhine, in turn, empties into the North Sea after crossing into the Netherlands. New York, NY, Columbia University Press, the Columbia Gazetteer of the World. New York, NY, Columbia University Press, leipzig, Germany, Veriag von Gustav Mayer. Gresswell, R. Kay, Huxley, Anthony, eds, standard Encyclopedia of the Worlds Rivers and Lakes
2.
Bern
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The city of Bern or Berne is the de facto capital of Switzerland, referred to by the Swiss as their Bundesstadt, or federal city. With a population of 141,762, Bern is the fourth-most populous city in Switzerland, the Bern agglomeration, which includes 36 municipalities, had a population of 406,900 in 2014. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000, Bern is also the capital of the canton of Bern, the second-most populous of Switzerlands cantons. The official language in Bern is German, but the language is an Alemannic Swiss German dialect. In 1983, the old town in the centre of Bern became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Bern is ranked among the top ten cities for the best quality of life. The etymology of the name Bern is uncertain and it has long been considered likely that the city was named after the Italian city of Verona, which at the time was known as Bern in Middle High German. As a result of the find of the Bern zinc tablet in the 1980s, it is now common to assume that the city was named after a pre-existing toponym of Celtic origin. The bear was the animal of the seal and coat of arms of Bern from at least the 1220s. The earliest reference to the keeping of bears in the Bärengraben dates to the 1440s. No archaeological evidence that indicates a settlement on the site of city centre prior to the 12th century has been found so far. In antiquity, a Celtic oppidum stood on the Engehalbinsel north of Bern, fortified since the second century BC, during the Roman era, a Gallo-Roman vicus was on the same site. The Bern zinc tablet has the name Brenodor, in the Early Middle Ages, a settlement in Bümpliz, now a city district of Bern, was some 4 km from the medieval city. The medieval city is a foundation of the Zähringer ruling family, according to 14th-century historiography, Bern was founded in 1191 by Berthold V, Duke of Zähringen. In 1218, after Berthold died without an heir, Bern was made an imperial city by the Goldene Handfeste of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. In 1353, Bern joined the Swiss Confederacy, becoming one of the eight cantons of the period of 1353 to 1481. The city grew out towards the west of the boundaries of the peninsula formed by the river Aare, the Zytglogge tower marked the western boundary of the city from 1191 until 1256, when the Käfigturm took over this role until 1345. It was, in turn, succeeded by the Christoffelturm until 1622, during the time of the Thirty Years War, two new fortifications – the so-called big and small Schanze – were built to protect the whole area of the peninsula
3.
Arch bridge
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An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side, a viaduct may be made from a series of arches, although other more economical structures are typically used today. Possibly the oldest existing bridge is the Mycenaean Arkadiko bridge in Greece from about 1300 BC. The stone corbel arch bridge is used by the local populace. The well-preserved Hellenistic Eleutherna Bridge has a corbel arch. The 4th century BC Rhodes Footbridge rests on an early voussoir arch, a more complete survey by the Italian scholar Vittorio Galliazzo found 931 Roman bridges, mostly of stone, in as many as 26 different countries. Roman arch bridges were usually semicircular, although a number were segmental arch bridges, generally, Roman bridges featured wedge-shaped primary arch stones of the same in size and shape. The Romans built both single spans and lengthy multiple arch aqueducts, such as the Pont du Gard and Segovia Aqueduct. Their bridges featured from an early time onwards flood openings in the piers, e. g. in the Pons Fabricius in Rome, Roman engineers were the first and until the industrial revolution the only ones to construct bridges with concrete, which they called Opus caementicium. The outside was covered with brick or ashlar, as in the Alcántara bridge. The Romans also introduced segmental arch bridges into bridge construction, trajans bridge over the Danube featured open-spandrel segmental arches made of wood. This was to be the longest arch bridge for a thousand years both in terms of overall and individual span length, while the longest extant Roman bridge is the 790 m long Puente Romano at Mérida. The late Roman Karamagara Bridge in Cappadocia may represent the earliest surviving bridge featuring a pointed arch, in medieval Europe, bridge builders improved on the Roman structures by using narrower piers, thinner arch barrels and lower span-rise ratios on bridges. Gothic pointed arches were introduced, reducing lateral thrust. The 14th century in particular saw bridge building reaching new heights, the bridge at Trezzo sullAdda, destroyed in the 15th century, even featured a span length of 72 m, not matched until 1796. Constructions such as the acclaimed Florentine segmental arch bridge Ponte Vecchio combined sound engineering with aesthetical appeal, the three elegant arches of the Renaissance Ponte Santa Trinita constitute the oldest elliptic arch bridge worldwide. In China, the oldest existing bridge is the Zhaozhou Bridge of 605 AD. The Zhaozhou Bridge, with a length of 167 feet and span of 123 feet, is the worlds first wholly stone open-spandrel segmental arch bridge, Bridges with perforated spandrels can be found worldwide, such as in China
4.
Sandstone
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Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earths crust, like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, quartz-bearing sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure, usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. They are formed from cemented grains that may either be fragments of a rock or be mono-minerallic crystals. The cements binding these grains together are typically calcite, clays, grain sizes in sands are defined within the range of 0.0625 mm to 2 mm. The formation of sandstone involves two principal stages, first, a layer or layers of sand accumulates as the result of sedimentation, either from water or from air. Typically, sedimentation occurs by the settling out from suspension. The most common cementing materials are silica and calcium carbonate, which are derived either from dissolution or from alteration of the sand after it was buried. Colours will usually be tan or yellow, a predominant additional colourant in the southwestern United States is iron oxide, which imparts reddish tints ranging from pink to dark red, with additional manganese imparting a purplish hue. Red sandstones are seen in the Southwest and West of Britain, as well as central Europe. The regularity of the latter favours use as a source for masonry, either as a building material or as a facing stone. These physical properties allow the grains to survive multiple recycling events. Quartz grains evolve from rock, which are felsic in origin. Feldspathic framework grains are commonly the second most abundant mineral in sandstones, Feldspar can be divided into two smaller subdivisions, alkali feldspars and plagioclase feldspars. The different types of feldspar can be distinguished under a petrographic microscope, below is a description of the different types of feldspar. Alkali feldspar is a group of minerals in which the composition of the mineral can range from KAlSi3O8 to NaAlSi3O8. Plagioclase feldspar is a group of solid solution minerals that range in composition from NaAlSi3O8 to CaAl2Si2O8. Lithic framework grains are pieces of ancient source rock that have yet to weather away to individual mineral grains, accessory minerals are all other mineral grains in a sandstone, commonly these minerals make up just a small percentage of the grains in a sandstone
5.
Tuff
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Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is compacted into a rock in a process called consolidation. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly used as construction material. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered tuffaceous, Tuff is a relatively soft rock, so it has been used for construction since ancient times. Since it is common in Italy the Romans used it often for construction, the Rapa Nui people used it to make most of the moai statues in Easter Island. Tuff can be classified as either sedimentary or igneous rocks and they are usually studied in the context of igneous petrology, although they are sometimes described using sedimentological terms. The material that is expelled in a volcanic eruption can be classified into three types, Volcanic gases, a mixture mostly of water vapour, carbon dioxide. Lava, the name of magma when it emerges and flows over the surface, and tephra, chunks of solid material of all shapes and sizes ejected and thrown through the air. Tephra is made when magma inside the volcano is blown apart by the expansion of hot volcanic gases. It is common for magma to explode as the gas dissolved in it comes out of solution as the pressure decreases when it flows to the surface and these violent explosions produce solid chunks of material that can then fly from the volcano. When these chunks are smaller than 2 mm in diameter they are called volcanic ash and it is made of small, slaggy pieces of lava and rock that have been tossed into the air by outbursts of steam and other gases. Among the loose beds of ash that cover the slopes of many volcanoes, in addition to true ashes of the kind described above, there are lumps of the old lavas and tuffs forming the walls of the crater, etc. In some great volcanic explosions nothing but materials of the kind were emitted. The ashes vary in size from large blocks twenty feet or more in diameter to the minutest impalpable dust, the large masses are called volcanic bombs, they have mostly a rounded, elliptical or pear-shaped form owing to rotation in the air before they solidified. Many of them have ribbed or nodular surfaces, and sometimes they have a crust intersected by many cracks like the surface of a loaf of bread, any ash in which they are very abundant is called an agglomerate. But many volcanoes stand near the sea, and the ashes cast out by them are mingled with the sediments that are gathering at the bottom of the waters, in this way ashy muds or sands or even in some cases ashy limestones are being formed. As a matter of fact most of the found in the older formations contain admixtures of clay, sand, and sometimes fossil shells. The showers of ashes often follow one another after longer or shorter intervals, the coarsest materials or agglomerates show this least distinctly, in the fine beds it is often developed in great perfection
6.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
7.
Rudolf I of Germany
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Rudolf I, also known as Rudolf of Habsburg,1 May 1218 –15 July 1291, was Count of Habsburg from about 1240 and the elected King of the Romans from 1273 until his death. Rudolfs election marked the end of the Great Interregnum in the Holy Roman Empire after the death of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II in 1250, the territories remained under Habsburg rule for more than 600 years, forming the core of the Habsburg Monarchy and the present-day country of Austria. Rudolf was the first king of the Romans of the Habsburg dynasty, Rudolf was born on 1 May 1218 at Limburgh Castle near Sasbach am Kaiserstuhl in the Breisgau region of present-day southwestern Germany. He was the son of Count Albert IV of Habsburg and of Hedwig, around 1232, he was given as a squire to his uncle, Rudolf I, Count of Laufenburg, to train in knightly pursuits. At his fathers death in 1239, he inherited estates from him around the ancestral seat of Habsburg Castle in the Aargau region of present-day Switzerland as well as in Alsace. In 1242, Hugh of Tuffenstein provoked Count Rudolf through contumelious expressions, in turn, the Count of Habsburg had invaded his domains, yet failed to take his seat of power. As the day passed on, Count Rudolf bribed the sentinels of the city and gained entry, then in 1244, to help control Lake Lucerne and restrict the neighboring forest communities of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, Rudolf built near its shores Neuhabsburg Castle. In 1245 Rudolf married Gertrude, daughter of Count Burkhard III of Hohenberg and he received as her dowry the castles of Oettingen, the valley of Weile, and other places in Alsace, and he became an important vassal in Swabia, the former Alemannic German stem duchy. That same year, Emperor Frederick II was excommunicated by Pope Innocent IV at the Council of Lyon, Rudolf sided against the Emperor, while the forest communities sided with Frederick. This gave them a pretext to attack and damage Neuhabsburg, Rudolf successfully defended it and drove them off. As a result, Rudolf, by siding with the Pope, gained more power, in 1254, he engaged with other nobles of the Staufen party against Bertold II, Bishop of Basle. When night fell, he penetrated the suburbs of Basle and burnt down the local nunnery, Pope Innocent IV excommunicated him and all parties involved. As penance, he took up the cross and joined Ottokar II, whilst there, he oversaw the founding of the city of Königsberg, which was named in memory of King Ottokar. The disorder in Germany during the interregnum after the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty afforded an opportunity for Count Rudolf to increase his possessions. His wife was a Hohenberg heiress, and on the death of his childless maternal uncle Count Hartmann IV of Kyburg in 1264, he also seized his valuable estates. Successful feuds with the Bishops of Strasbourg and Basel further augmented his wealth and reputation, including rights over various tracts of land that he purchased from abbots and these various sources of wealth and influence rendered Rudolf the most powerful prince and noble in southwestern Germany. In the autumn of 1273, the prince-electors met to choose a king after Richard of Cornwall had died in England in April 1272. Rudolfs election in Frankfurt on 1 October 1273, when he was 55 years old, was due to the efforts of his brother-in-law
8.
Oak
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An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 600 extant species of oaks, the common name oak also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus, as well as in those of unrelated species such as Grevillea robusta and the Casuarinaceae. North America contains the largest number of oak species, with approximately 90 occurring in the United States, the second greatest center of oak diversity is China, which contains approximately 100 species. Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with lobate margins in many species, also, the acorns contain tannic acid, as do the leaves, which helps to guard from fungi and insects. Many deciduous species are marcescent, not dropping dead leaves until spring, in spring, a single oak tree produces both male flowers and small female flowers. The fruit is a nut called an acorn, borne in a structure known as a cupule, each acorn contains one seed and takes 6–18 months to mature. The live oaks are distinguished for being evergreen, but are not actually a distinct group, the oak tree is a flowering plant. Oaks may be divided into two genera and a number of sections, The genus Quercus is divided into the following sections, Quercus, the white oaks of Europe, Asia and North America. Styles are short, acorns mature in 6 months and taste sweet or slightly bitter, the leaves mostly lack a bristle on their lobe tips, which are usually rounded. The type species is Quercus robur, Mesobalanus, Hungarian oak and its relatives of Europe and Asia. Styles long, acorns mature in about 6 months and taste bitter, the section Mesobalanus is closely related to section Quercus and sometimes included in it. Cerris, the Turkey oak and its relatives of Europe and Asia, styles long, acorn mature in 18 months and taste very bitter. The inside of the shell is hairless. Its leaves typically have sharp tips, with bristles at the lobe tip. Protobalanus, the live oak and its relatives, in southwest United States. Styles short, acorns mature in 18 months and taste very bitter, the inside of the acorn shell appears woolly. Leaves typically have sharp tips, with bristles at the lobe tip. Lobatae, the red oaks of North America, Central America, styles long, acorns mature in 18 months and taste very bitter
9.
Covered bridge
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A covered bridge is a timber-truss bridge with a roof and siding which, in most covered bridges, create an almost complete enclosure. The purpose of the covering is to protect the structural members from the weather. Uncovered wooden bridges have a lifespan of only 10 to 15 years because of the effects of rain, Bridges having covers for reasons other than protecting wood trusses, such as for protecting pedestrians and keeping horses from shying away from water, are also sometimes called covered bridges. Early timber covered bridges consisted of horizontal beams laid on top of piles driven into the riverbed below, however, this construction method meant that the length between bridge spans was limited by the maximum length of each beam. Early European truss bridges used king post and queen post configurations, some early German bridges included diagonal panel bracing in trusses with parallel top and bottom chords. To solve the problem of deterioration of the wood upon exposure to weather, at least two covered bridges make the claim of being the first built in the United States. Town records for Swanzey, New Hampshire, indicate their Carleton Bridge was built in 1789, philadelphia, however, claims a bridge built in the early 1800s on 30th Street and over the Schuylkill River was the first, noting that investors wanted it covered to extend its life. Beginning around 1820, new designs were developed, such as the Burr, Lattice, in the mid-1800s, the development of cheaper wrought iron and cast iron led to metal rather than timber trusses, except in those areas of plentiful large timber. There are about 1600 covered bridges in the world, china, covered bridges are called lángqiáo, or wind and rain bridges in Guizhou, traditionally built by the Dong. There are also covered bridges in Fujian, taishun County, in southern Zhejiang province near the border of Fujian, has more than 900 covered bridges, many of them hundreds of years old, as well as a covered bridge museum. There are also a number in nearby Qingyuan County, as well as in Shouning County, the Xijin Bridge in Zhejiang is one of the largest. Germany / Switzerland, Holzbrücke Bad Säckingen, over the river Rhine from Bad Säckingen, Germany, to Stein, Switzerland, first built before 1272, destroyed and re-built many times. Switzerland has many covered bridges, Bridge over the river Muota, Brunnen, near Lake Lucerne, Berner Brücke/Pont de Berne over the Saane/Sarine, near Fribourg. Bulgaria, Lovech Covered Bridge over the river Osam The 1, in 1900 Quebec, New Brunswick, and Ontario had an estimated 1000,400, and five covered bridges respectively. By the 1990s there were 98 in Quebec,62 in New Brunswick, and one in Ontario, the West Montrose Covered Bridge. According to Covered Bridges Today by Brenda Krekler, as many as 12,000 covered bridges existed in the United States. The National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges was formed in 1950, the Federal Highway Administration encourages the preservation of covered bridges with its Covered Bridge Manual. Delaware - Three bridges remain in New Castle county, see list of covered bridges in Indiana
10.
Limmat
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The Limmat is a river in Switzerland. The river commences at the outfall of Lake Zurich, in the part of the city of Zurich. From Zurich it flows in a direction, after 35 km reaching the river Aare. The confluence is located north of the town of Brugg. The main towns along the Limmat Valley downstream of Zurich are Dietikon, Wettingen and its main tributaries are the Linth, via Lake Zurich, the Sihl, in Zurich, and the Reppisch, in Dietikon. The hydronym is first attested in the 8th century, as Lindimacus and it is of Gaulish origin, from *lindo- lake and *magos plain, and was thus presumably in origin the name of the plain formed by the Linth. Like many Swiss rivers, the Limmat is intensively used for production of power, along its course of 35 km. These include, Historically, the Limmat was an important navigation route, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, voyages from Zurich to Koblenz are recorded. In 1447, the Emperor Frederick III granted the privilege of free navigation on the Limmat, because of the current, navigation was typically downstream only, with the barges being sold on arrival. Today, the Limmat is navigable for much of its length by small craft only, the traditional boat type used on the river is the weidling, a flat-bottomed vessel that is usually 10 metres long. The uppermost stretch of the river through the centre of Zurich is navigable by larger vessels. On this stretch of the river the Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft operates its Limmat boat service, from the Landesmuseum to Lake Zurich, zürich–Enge Alpenquai is located on Zürichsee lakeshore in Enge, a locality of the municipality of Zürich. Media related to Limmat at Wikimedia Commons Media related to Limmat in Zürich at Wikimedia Commons Limmat in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
11.
Baden, Switzerland
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Baden, sometimes unofficially, to distinguish it from other Badens, called Baden bei Zürich or Baden im Aargau, is a municipality in Switzerland. It is the seat of the district of Baden in the canton of Aargau, located 25 km northwest of Zürich in the Limmat Valley mainly on the western side of the Limmat, its mineral hot springs have been famed since at least the Roman era. Its official language is German, but the spoken language is the local Alemannic Swiss German dialect. Its population in 2010 was over 18,000, downtown Baden is located on the left bank of the river Limmat in its eponymous valley. Its area is divided into the Kappelerhof, Allmend, Meierhof, in 1962, Baden also absorbed the adjacent village of Dättwil. On the right bank of the river is the village of Ennetbaden and these communities, as of 2006, had an area of 13.2 km2. Of that,9. 9% is used for agricultural purposes, the hot sulfur springs, which given Baden its name, lie north of downtown and number about 20. They vary in temperature from 98 to 126 °F. Baden is first attested in Roman sources as Aquae Helveticae. Hippocrates had counseled against the use of water from springs, but by the time of Vitruvius, Pliny. In addition to their use, the Romans also revered natural springs for recreational. Tacitus mentions the town obliquely, describing it as a built up into a semblance of a town. Much used for its healthful waters and this Roman vicus was to the north of the Baden gorge on the Haselfeld, founded to support the legionary camp at Vindonissa. There was a complex on the left bank of the Limmat fed by a system of springs with 47 °C water. The main axis of the vicus was the Vindonissa road, which ran parallel to the slope and it was flanked by porticos, beyond which lay commercial and residential buildings. The center of the settlement had some wealthy villa-like structures, the resort, residential, and commercial districts all grew to a respectable size over the first half of the 1st century. In AD69, however, the 21st Legion burned the town amid the conflicts of the Year of the Four Emperors and its wooden buildings destroyed, the town was rebuilt in stone. The town shrank some after the closing of the Vinonissa camp in AD101, reginuss pottery workshop and Gemellianuss bronze works flourished during the second half of the 2nd century. Around the middle of the 3rd century, however, the settlement was threatened by multiple Alemanni invasions, the baths were frequented again by the time of Charlemagne
