Switzerland. — In your Mediterranean journeys you learned that most lands near the Mediterranean Sea are mountainous. Your next journey will take you from the eastern end of this sea to a land which is even more mountainous than the Mediterranean lands.

Switzerland is then ame of this mountainous land. You cannot reach it by sea, because the sea does not touch it. You go by boat to a city on the northwestern coast of Italy, and go north from there by train.

Reading the map and pictures. — Find, in Figure 97, the sign for a city on the northwestern coast of Italy, east of the sign for Marseffle. This dot stands for the city of Genoa. The picture in Figure 117 shows you how the harbor into which you come looks. What do you see back of the town?

In Figure 118, you see one of the streets of this city. How is it like some of the streets in other cities which you have visited? On the way from the wharf to the railroad station you go along a narrow street. In front of the station is an open square in which the statue of Christopher Columbus stands. Why should his statue be in Genoa?

On the train which you board at the Genoa station you pass through the range of mountains that you see back of the town, and travel then across low land in which there are many farms. On your way across this plain you pass through a great Italian city in which there are many factory buildings. In Figure 119 there is an airplane view of a part of this city. Find in the picture some buildings that you think are factory buildings. A ride of several hours brings you to the mountains north of the plain. Here you find the town shown in Figure 120. It is not the seashore which you see in the picture, but the shore of a lake. The dot which stands for this city in Figure 97 is the first dot north of that for Genoa.

Find in Figure 97 the second dot north of that for Genoa. This stands for the city of Basic, to which you are going from the town shown in Figure 120. Between these two towns you must cross a belt of great mountains called the Alps. This belt of mountains is hundreds of miles long and almost a hundred miles wide. The town in Figure 120 is at the southern edge of the mountain belt. You have to go north and a little west from this town to get to Basic. The road is some two hundred miles long, and it would take you at least eight hours to make the trip.

Something to look for. — As you read the following stories of Switzerland and study the pictures, try to see clearly the kind of country in which the Swiss people live.

Find three things that help many people earn their livings in this mountainous land.

Travel notes. — A little American girl who took a trip across Switzerland made notes about the things she saw as she looked out of the train window during the first three hours after she left the Italian town shown in Figure 120. From her notes she made the following record of this part of her trip. This record shows she was a good traveler, for from it you can find many of the things you would see if you made the same trip. Find at least fifteen different things which you could see. In whatever direction she looked she could see mountains, and so you can put mountains first on your list.

Going into Switzerland. —" We followed along the shore of a lake to our right.

"We went through a tunnel nearly two miles long.

"At the first Swiss town, the train waited for the guards to examine our baggage.

"We went through two more tunnels.

"Soon we saw another beautiful lake on the left. The train crossed this lake over a stone bridge half a mile long and followed along the western shore of the lake.

"There were pretty villages along its shores. "People were working in vineyards and gardens on the lower parts of the mountains.

"Higher up the mountain sides we could see walnut trees and chestnut trees.

"We passed through three more tunnels.

"We came to another lake to the left, and could see a river emptying into the lake.

"After passing through four more tunnels, we came to a town where we could see a very old castle built on a high place overlooking the village. Soon we came to another tunnel.

"We followed along a river, and could see it now and then to the left.

"There were mountains beyond the river but they were not so close to us as those on our right.

"On the mountain sides to the right were many pastures, and a few herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. There were several villages at the foot of the mountains.

"We went through two more tunnels, some vineyards, and several groves of chestnut and walnut trees. We saw a beautiful waterfall, and then more vineyards and trees.

"The train crossed the river, went through more tunnels, and passed other beautiful waterfalls."

Some things to do with your list. —

1. How many of the fifteen things in your list might you see from a car window in a trip of sixty miles from your home?

2. The pictures in Figures 121, 122, and 123 were taken in or near the region which the little girl described, and that in Figure 124 was taken a little farther along the route you will follow. How many of the things named in your list can you find in these pictures in Figures 121, 122, 123, and 124? Which one of you found the most?

3. What did the little girl name most often in her notes? Do you see why a Swiss railroad goes through so many tunnels?

Climbing inside a mountain. — Beyond the section of the route described by the little girl, the railroad follows the river on upstream. The river flows in a trough between the mountains. Because this trough, or valley, is so narrow, the train runs close to the bank. Then it comes to a place where the slope ahead is too steep for the engine to climb. Here, in the mountain which forms the side of the valley, men have built a tunnel that follows a path which is like one round of a corkscrew. By going through this curved tunnel, which is about a mile long, the train comes out of the mountain at a place more than a hundred feet higher than the place where it went into the mountain. This kind of tunnel is called a spiral tunnel. Spiral tunnels also have been built at other places in Switzerland where the outside of a mountain is too steep for an engine to climb.

A choice of routes. — Not quite half way across the mountain belt, you come to the great tunnel of St. Gotthard. It is not a spiral tunnel, but a straight one about nine miles long. Instead of riding through the tunnel, some people leave the train at the town which they reach just before they come to the tunnel, and drive or go on foot across the mountains to the town near the other end of the tunnel. As you read the next two paragraphs, decide which you would do.

The St. Gotthard Tunnel. — Although this great tunnel is some nine miles long, it takes a fast train only about fifteen minutes to go through it. A fifteen minute trip through a tunnel, however, seems much longer to most travelers than a fifteen minute trip above ground, for in the tunnel there is very little to see through the car windows. If there were not lights here and there, it would be so dark you could not even see the tunnel walls. There are two tracks through the t’uinel, so trains can pass in it.

The St. Gotthard Pass. — It is a trip of about eighteen miles over the mountains from the town near one end of the tunnel to the town near the other end. Many peoplechoose to go by the longer, higher route, however, and some of the men in these towns make their living by taking people over it. Many of the guides who live in the town from which you would start near the southern end of the tunnel have Italian names, such as Giovanni, Antonio, and Tito.

Leaving the town near the southern end of the tunnel, a walk or drive of about six and a half miles brings you to the highest place in the route over the mountain. At this place you are more than half a mile higher than you were at the beginning of the walk. It takes longer to walk or drive uphill than it does to walk or drive the same distance on nearly level ground, and most people who go by this route spend more than three hours in going these six miles.. There is very little danger along the way in summer, though sometimes snow, stones, or masses of earth slide down from the steep mountain sides and do great damage. Even in summer there are sometimes snowdrifts along the road, and in winter the drifts are at times thirty to forty or more feet deep. Travelers sometimes are lost in the deep winter snows, and at a number of places in the mountains St. Bernard dogs are trained to hunt for them. Some of these dogs you can see in Figure 125. The higher you go, the colder it gets. On many of the higher slopes, pine trees grow.

When you reach the highest part of the road, the mountains still tower above you both to your right and to your left, for the road passes through a notch or low place in the mountains. Although this place is lower than the mountains on either side of it, it really is a high place. This "low" place is called a pass. Do you see why people build roads through mountain passes, instead of over the tops of the mountains?

Near the highest part of the pass, the roadway leads past several small lakes. From one of the lakes near the pass flows the river that the roadway has followed upstream. We speak of the place where a river flows out of a lake as the beginning, or head, or source, of the river. We say that this river has its source in a lake. Do you see what this means? The mouth, or lower end, of this river is far away to the south.

A short distance from these lakes there is a hotel where travelers can rest. The remainder of the journey northward across the mountains is down hill. Do you think the people who built this hotel chose a good place for it when they decided to put it between the "up" and "down" parts of the trip? Why?

From one of the lakes a little north of the highest part of the pass, a river flows northward. Do you see why it flows in the opposite direction from that in which the river on the southern slope of the mountain flows? The roadway follows the valley of this north-flowing river. The northern slope of the mountains, however, is not so steep as the southern slope. The mountains tower above you on both sides, and you can see, here and there, snowfields, icefields called glaciers, and barren, rocky peaks. How would you like to climb to a place so high in the mountains that it is too cold for trees to grow, a place where you would find only bare rocks and snowfields like those in Figure 126? Can you find in the picture two people who have climbed up that high? Of course you do not have to do any climbing like this on the road through the pass. Five miles before you reach the town near the northern end of the tunnel, you come to a little town from which you could make a side trip to see two glaciers which are visited by many tourists. A side trip. About forty miles from the town where you would stare on this side trip, you could see the largest glacier in Switzerland. Part of it is shown in Figure 127. It is about ten miles long. Although this great mass of ice is shaped, somewhat like a river, there are other ways in which it is not like one. For example, if this were a river, the water would move rapidly. The ice moves so slowly that you can neither see nor feel it move. Can you see why many people travel long distances to see this great glacier?

Figure 128 shows a near view of part of the other famous glacier which you would visit on this side trip. Would it be easy or hard to travel across this part of the glacier? Not all parts of a glacier are as rough as this. However, in many cases it is so difficult to travel over glaciers that people do not attempt to do so without well-trained guides. Find in Figure 128 the hotel high up on the mountain side. Do you think this is a good place for a hotel? Why? Find the winding road that leads to it. If you followed this road down to the foot of the mountain, you would be near the lower end of this great glacier. There, several little streams flow out from caves in the ice. The water in them comes from the melting of the ice of the glacier. The little streams join to form one stream, called the Rhone River. Here, then; is the source of the very river whose mouths you saw as you sailed along the Mediterranean coast near Marseille. This glacier, which is the source of the Rhone River, is called the Rhone Glacier.

The northern end of the tunnel. — At the town near the northern end of the tunnel, you would find guides ready to take you on other side trips to see other beautiful lakes, peaks, and glaciers. Many of Ihese guides have German names, such as Johann, Heinrich, and Hans. From this town on to Basle, you would find most of the Swiss people speaking German instead of speaking Italian as the people do who live south of the mountain range through which the St. Gotthard Tunnel passes.

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