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ZERMATT

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 975 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ZERMATT , a See also:

mountain See also:village at the See also:head of the Visp valley and at the See also:foot of the See also:Matterhorn, in the See also:canton of the See also:Valais, See also:Switzerland. It is 22i M. by See also:rail from Visp in the See also:Rhone valley, and there is also a railway from Zermatt past the Riffelinns to the very See also:top of the Gornergrat (10,289 ft.). The village iS 5315 ft. above the See also:sea, and in ',goo had 741 permanent in-habitants (all Romanists See also:save 9, and all but 12 See also:German-speaking), See also:resident in 73 houses. Formerly Zermatt was called " Praborgne," and this name is mentioned in the Swiss See also:census of 1888. Its originally See also:Romance See also:population seems to have been Teutonised in the course of the 15th See also:century, the name " Matt " (now written " Zermatt," i.e. the village on the meadows) first occurring at the very end of that century. Zermatt was See also:long known to botanists and geologists only, and has an interesting though very See also:local See also:history. De See also:Saussure in 1789 was one of the first tourists to visit it. But it was not till the arrival of M. See also:Alexandre Seiler in 1854 that its fame as one of the See also:chief tourist resorts in the See also:Alps was laid, for tourists abound only where there are See also:good inns. When M. Seiler died in 1891 he was proprietor of most of the See also:great hotels in and around Zermatt. The Matterhorn, which frowns over the village from which it takes its name, was not conquered till 1865, Mr E.

See also:

Whymper and two guides then alone surviving the terrible See also:accident in which their four comrades perished. The easy See also:glacier pass of the St Theodule (10,899 ft.) leads S. in six See also:hours from the village to the Val Tournanche, a tributary glen of the valley of See also:Aosta.

End of Article: ZERMATT

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