EINSIEDELN, the most populous town in the Swiss canton of Schwyz, on the right bank of the Alpbach (an affluent of the Sihl). It is 2,908 ft. above sea-level, and 25 m. S.E. of Zurich. It communicates directly with Schwyz over the Hacken pass ft.) or the Holzegg pass (4,616 ft.). In 193o the popu lation was 8,094, almost all of them Catholics and German speaking. The town is dependent on the Benedictine abbey that rises slightly above it to the east. The abbey was founded about 934, on the site of a hermit's cell. In 1274 the reigning abbot was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Originally under the protection of the counts of Rapperswil (to which town on the lake of ZUrich the old pilgrims' way still leads over the Etzel pass, 3,146 ft., with its chapel and inn), this position passed by marriage in 1295 to the Laufenburg Habsburgs, but from 1386 was permanently occupied by Schwyz. Throngs of pilgrims resorted to Einsiedeln in the middle ages. The existing buildings date from the i8th century and the treasury and library contain many precious objects, despite the sack by the French in 1798. Zwingli was the parish priest of Einsiedeln 1516-18, while near the town Paracelsus (1493-1541) was born.