SCHAFFHAUSEN, a town of Switzerland, the metropolis of a canton of the same name. It is seated on the Rhine, and owes its origin to the interruption of the navigation of that river by the cataract at Lauffen. It was at one period an imperial town, and admitted a
Schaffhausen member of the Helvetic confederacy in 1501; and its territory forms the 12th canton in point of rank. The inhabitants of this town are computed at 6000, but the number of citizens or burghers is about 1600. From these were elected 85 members, who formed the great and little council; the senate, or little council of 25, being entrusted with the executive power; and the great council finally deciding all appeals, and regulating the more important concerns of government. Though a frontier town, it has no garrison, and the fortifications are weak; but it once had a famous wooden bridge over the Rhine, the work of one Ulric Grubenman, a carpenter. The fides and top of it were covered; and it was a kind of hanging bridge; the road was nearly level, and not carried as usual, over the top of the arch, but let into the middle of it, and there suspended. This curious bridge was burnt by the French, when they evacuated Schaffhausen, after being defeated by the Austrians, April 13. 1799. Schaffhausen is 22 miles north by east of Zurich, and 39 east of Basel. Long. Lat.