​SEMMERING PASS, the lowest of all the great passes across the Alps. The hospice, near the summit, was founded about 1160, but the pass was certainly used used at a much earlier date. Between 1848 and 1854 a railway line (the first in any sense to cross the Alps) was constructed, but passes 282 ft. below the summit of the pass (3225 ft.) by a tunnel about 1 m. long. The line runs from Wiener Neustadt (30½ m. from Vienna) past Bruck to Graz (139 m. from Vienna), the capital of Styria, whence it is 227 m. by rail to Trieste.