Chamouni
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Chamouni. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
sha-moo-ne', a picturesque vale in Switzerland. Politically it lies in Savoy, a province of France. Geographically it is a part of the upper valley of the river Arve. It is about twelve miles in length. It runs toward the southwest. Mount Blanc towers on one side, and a lofty, precipitous mountain bounds it on the other. The name is derived from the chamois or wild goat. The valley receives several glaciers, chief among which is the noted Mer de Glace , or sea of ice from the shoulder of Mount Blanc. The village of Chamouni, magnificently situated in full view of the great mountain, has a large summer population of tourists. In the winter the natives, about 2,500 in number, settle down to spinning, toymaking, carving, preparing alpenstocks, and getting ready in other ways for a summer tourist trade. The soil of the valley is scanty, but is carefully tilled. Colonies of bees gather mountain honey. See Blanc ; Switzerland
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or CHAMONIX (shamo'-nē), a celebrated valley in France, department Haute-Savoie, in the Pennine Alps, over 3,000 feet above sealevel. It is about 12 miles long, by 1 to 6 miles broad, its E. side formed by Mount Blanc and other lofty mountains of the same range, and it is traversed by the Arve. The mountains on the E. side are always snow-clad, and from these proceed numerous glaciers, such as the Glacier de Bossons and the Mer de Glace. The village of Chamouni (pop. 1,500) is much frequented by tourists, and is one of the points from which they visit Mount Blanc.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's placing of the valley "in Switzerland" was wrong even in 1910 — Collier's has it right in 1921 as Haute-Savoie in France — and the winter economy Aiton described, of spinning, toymaking and "preparing alpenstocks" for the summer trade, has been inverted. Chamonix hosted the first Winter Olympic Games in 1924, and winter sports now bring more visitors than the summer climbing season; the town has grown from the 1,500 to 2,500 of these accounts to roughly 9,000 residents, swelling many times over in season. The Mont Blanc road tunnel, opened in 1965, runs from the valley to Courmayeur in Italy, and cable cars carry tourists to the Aiguille du Midi at 3,842 metres rather than up on foot. The Mer de Glace, the "sea of ice" both entries single out, has retreated and thinned dramatically since they wrote, so that visitors reaching it from the Montenvers railway must now descend hundreds of steps to the ice.
Written for this edition, 2026.