A Little Journey to Switzerland: For Intermediate and Upper Grades

Excerpt from A Little Journey to Switzerland: For Intermediate and Upper GradesThis playground is about one-third as large as the State of New York. Its name is Switzerland. It is one of the smallest and most mountainous countries of Europe. Many of its square miles stand on end in the form of mountains and glaciers. It boasts of the highest ranges of the Alps, some of the peaks being almost three miles high. Many of these lofty peaks are covered with snow, winter and summer.Nearly two-thirds of Switzerland consists of lakes and mountains, which leave little room for large ranches and farms. The farms are so very small that we could almost fold them up and put them in our pockets. Only one-ninth of the land is tilled, and there is a population of to be fed.Then, again, the Swiss have no sea-coast, which hampers their trade across the ocean; their summer seasons are short, and crops often fail to ripen as they should. Avalanches and storms at times tear down almost as fast as the' people can build.What do the people do? Mountains and glaciers are all very well to look at, but they do not yield crops.The Swiss must have great difficulty in' earning their bread; clearly they have no time to play. Yet the Swiss are the most prosperous people of Europe. They all make a good living and there are no beggars.I will tell you how they manage. They make money by entertaining their visitors from other parts of Europe. This is one of their leading occupations. They make money out of their lakes and mountains and glaciers.They build splendid hotels in every mountain nook, f'on every shore of their blue lakes, and invite the whole world to come and look at their scenery.There are over 1400 of these hotels, not counting the boarding houses and cafes.During the long winter days and evenings many are employed in making souvenirs to sell to tourists, and in preparing to act as guides for parties who wish to climb the mountains during the summer.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.