EUROPE

the most westerly and the smallest continent of the Old World, has an area of 3,750,000 sq. m.; its mainland lies between 36° and 71° 6’ N., and between 66° 20’ E. and 9° 30’ W. The extreme length (from Nordlyn on the N. to the S. of Greece) is about 2,400 m., the extreme width from E. to W. about 3,000 m. Europe is bounded N. by the Arctic Ocean, on the E. by the we % Ural Mts., Ural_R., and the Caspian Sea, S. and S.E. by the Caucasus, Black Sea, Bosporus, Sea of Marmora, Dardanelles, and Aegean Sea, 8S. by the Mediterranean as far as the Strait of Gibraltar, where Europe is 8H m. distant from N.W. Africa, W. by the Atlantic Ocean. Physical Features—The Brit. Isles are separated from the mainland by the Eng. Channel and North Sea, Iceland by the North Sea, Novaya Zemlya, Spitz bergen, etc., by the Arctic Ocean. The coast-line, about 48,000 m. in extent, is very much broken. It throws out the great south-pointing peninsulas of Norway and Sweden (Scand in a via) on the north, Spain and Portugal (Iberian Peninsula), Italy, and that of Balkania and the Crimea on the 8. and the north-pointing peninsula of Denmark. All along it are islands, sheltered roadsteads, and situations for harbours. The many land-locked seas and considerable inlets and the navigable rivers bring a large area within convenient reach of the sea. Except in Ru ia, no place is more than 300 m. from the sea, and the great plain of Hungary is the only large region from which acce to the sea is difficult. In the N.E. traffic is interrupted in winter by the freezing of seas and waterways. "The principal system of mountains in Europe consists of a series of folds radiating from the Alps. A great W. loop pa es through the A pennines of Italy, Atlas of N. Africa, into Spain as the Sierra Nevada, and with the Pyrenees, a short branch, probably rejoins the Alps. To the E. the great Car path i an fold encircles the Hungarian plain before “Sed into the Balkan peninsula as the alkan Mts., and by the Crimea into ' the Caucasus. Another fold, the Dinaric _ Alps, forms the E. boundary of the Adriatic Sea, becomes the Pindus range in Greece, and pa es into Asia Minor. To the N. of this great system are the di ected plateaus of Spain, France, Bohemia, Scand in a via, and N. Scotland. About two-thirds of the surface is a great plain, of which the greater part is under 600 ft: above sea-level. It begins in §, of England and Bay of Biscay and extends through N. and EH. of France (which was united to England in a recent geological period), N.E. to the tundras along the Arctic Ocean, E. and 8.E. to the Caspian and Black Seas; low lands extend along the coast and lower courses of rivers of Portugal, Spain, 8. France, Italy, Turkey,and Greece; and along the Danube, encircled by the Alps, Car path i ans, and Balkans are the plains of Hungary and Wall a chia. A considerable area around the N. end of the Caspian Sea is below sea-level. There are two great lake areas, one in the low lying dist. round the Baltic, the other in the mountainous region of the Alps —hoth districts which have been subjected to intense ice action. The Alps and the Valdai Hills are the principal watersheds; from the former flow the Rhine (to the North Sea), Rhone, Po, and Adige (to the Mediterranean), and the Danube tribs. (to the Black Sea); from _ the latter descend the N.Dvina (to the White Sea), the Volga (to the Caspian), the Don and Dnieper (to the Black Sea), the W. Dvina and Nieman (to the Baltic). The countries of Europe are Portugal, Spain, Andorra, France, Britain, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, San Marino, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Jugo-Slavia, Denmark, Norway Sweden, Finland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Turkey and the various republics of postwar Ru ia. rocks appear in the N. (the Outer He brides, Norway, N. Ru ia, etc.), and in the great highland areas above mentioned. S. of the northern band Camiferous strata were deposited, stretching from Cumber land and Wales eastward. Then followed the Permian, Palaeozoic, and Mesozoic periods, during which the sea covered much of 8S. and Central Europe, the Cretaceous period in which there was a great upheaval, continued in the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene periods, the last-named being the age of volcanoes. The Glacial period practically completed the conformation of the continent. The precious metals are not found in abundance, but there are rich veins of coal (chiefly in Britain, Belgium, France, Germany), iron (the same, with Sweden and Spain), copper (Sweden and Spain), lead (Spain), zinc (Germany), mercury (Spain and Austria), sulphur (Sicily), and salt (Austria). Owing to the position of the continent in the N. temperate zone, the influence of the Gulf Stream along the N.W., the large amount of inland water, and the slope and exposure of the great plain, Europe has a more temperate yet more varied climate than any other continent. The extreme N. is arctic, the sheltered Mediterranean district sub-tropical. The S.W. winds, blowing over the warm Gulf Stream, bring abundant moisture and heat; nowhere is agriculture impo ible owing to drought except in S.E. and in interior of Spain. Asa rule, rainfall decreases and range of temperature increases from W. to EH. Flora and fauna vary in accordance with climate—i.e. from sub-arctic to EUROPE BCALE OF MILES 300 400, 500 Ports of International Concorn © sub-tropical. Indigenous animals include bear, wolf, elk, chamois, many species of deer, foxes, hares, and rabbits. A few bison are left in Central Europe. The North Sea provides a valuable fishing-ground for herring, cod, mackerel, etc., while tunny fishing is an important Mediterranean industry. Of native trees, fir, oak, apple, pear, and cherry are the most common, while many varieties—e.g., myrtle and fig—imported centuries ago from Asia, are found to thrive excellently. Every cultivated product can be grown farther N. than in other continents. The central regions produce timber, fibres, cereals, and hardier fruits, the S. sub-tropical fruits, the N. the hardier cereals; abundance of pasture and excellent fisheries. Races.—The lan gauges spoken may be cla ified as Indo-European, Semitic, and Slav, the races roughly described as Caucasian. The question of races is by no means settled, but ethnologists, now entirely disregarding the test of language, tend to divide European races into the three chief cla es of ‘Teutonic’ (tall, dolichocephalic, with blue eyes and fair hair), ‘Mediterranean’ (of middle height, dolichocephalic, with dark hair and eyes), and ‘Alpine’ (stocky and brachiocephalic, with medium colouring)—po ibly all modifications of one original European race. The identity of the Iberians, who preceded the Celts in Britain and are to be traced in Spain and elsewhere, is still disputed; while the Celts, it is thought, were midway between the Teutonic and Mediterranean types. The ethnological problems of the Gr. and Ital, peninsulas are still unsolved. The total population is estimated at 450,000,000. History.—The earliest civilization of Europe was in the Troad, the E. coast of Greece, and the islands of the Aigean Sea. This Pelasgian, Mycenaean, or B.C.; the Minoan towns are supposed to have acquired their arts from Egypt through Phoenician traders. The Hellenic period followed, and by the 7th cent. B.C. the highly organized and cultivated city-states of Greece were flourishing, while the rest of Kurope was occupied largely by Celtic and Teutonic races, who for many centuries preserved their tribal organization. One aspect of the history of Europe is the fall of the city-state and the tribe before the empire, and the subsequent overthrow of the empire by the modern nation. There were signs of unity in Greece in the alternate A then i an and Spartan supremacy, but never any true panHellenic feeling; it was no great disgrace to Medize, and the alliance against Philip of Macedon was too late to save Greece from the decisive defeat at The vast empire of Alexander the Great, the next salient feature of history, broke up after his death in 323 B.C., and was succeeded by the world-power of the Romans. The Roman Empire existed in some form until 1806. Rome ceased to be its centre in A.D. 330, when Const an tine the Great established_his capital at Byzantium, henceforth Constantinople; it was divided into East (Byzantine) and West in 395, with Rome as cap. of the Western division; it was restored to nominal unity by the deposition of August ulus, last Roman emperor of the West, by the Goths in 476, but this event really meant the final division of East and West. The disputes about images in the churches caused the pope and Romans to repudiate the rule of the Byzantine emperor at the close of the 8th cent., and in 800 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was crowned emperor by the pope. See Rome; ByYzanrTINE EMPIRE.. The empire was attached to Germany from 962 (when Otto I. was crowned, receiving the title of Holy Roman emperor of the Ger. people) to 1806, although the dignity was elective, and, as in the great contest of 1519, the sovereigns of other lands sometimes became candidates for election. The Byzantine Empire kept alive Gr. civilization, and, protected Europe from the hordes of Asia until 1453, when it fell before the Turks. The Byzantine Empire, however, was a mediaeval and Oriental rather than a Roman state, and the fall of the Western Empire in 476 is always taken to be the end of the anc. and beginning of the modern history of Europe. { Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire in 312; it was preached to the Goths by Ulfilas in 376; the Irish and Franks were converted in the 5th cent., the English, 7th cent., the rest of N. Europe, 8th-13th cent., and Hungary, 10th cent. Christianity and the tradition of empire gave rise to some of the chief characteristics of mediaeval Europe; the conception of a theocratic world-power, of which the spiritual side was the papacy, the temporal aspect the emperor, has been ascribed to the Middle Ages. The struggle of papacy and empire for supremacy in this theocratic government was the chief political fact. The crusades, Gothic arch., and the production of epic and romantic literature are other salient features,: The 15th cent. saw the Kenai ance,: which largely modified Christian by THE NEW STATES $“"Yuid Me ‘i OF Wit cla . civilization, and in Spain, France, and England the establishment of strong modern monarchies. The 16th cent. swept away the notion of the world power of papacy and empire, the Reformation being largely an index of the movement to establish in depend ent nations with national churches. The result of the wars of religion, which raged until the Treaty of Westphal ia in 1648, was that the principle was established, The 17th cent. was marked by the decline of Spain, the leader of Europe since the union of its provinces at the close of the 15th cent. by Ferdinand and Isabella. Their grandson, Charles V., ruled over Spain, the Nether lan ds, and the empire, besides monopolizing the trade with the New World, discovered in 1492 through Span. encourage ment. Spain was also the chief Catholic power, and so religious, national, and commercial rivalry united Europe against her. After the abdication of Charles V. 1555 the empire was settled on his younger son, and so separated from Spain, but for a cent. the Span. and Austrian Habsburgs continued to trouble the ‘Balance of Power’, a doctrine which now succeeded the mediaeval ideal of a world-empire. Holland succe fully secured its independence of Spain, after a fight which exhausted the latter, at the close of the 16th cent.; Elizabeth an sail-. ors inflicted great damage on Span. commerce and destroyed her fleets, and the last great war of religion, the Thirty Years’ War 1618-48, teft the petty Ger. states practically independent of the emperor. Finally France, the natural enemy of Spain, as situated between Spain and the Span. Netherlands, obtained the aid of Cromwell's Ironsides, brought Spain, which had not accepted the Treaty of Westphalia, to sue for peace, and by the Treaty of the Pyrenees 1659, tied the hands of Austria and Spain. The following period, ‘the age of Louis XIV.,’ is that of the ascendency of France. This was one of the most glorious periods of Fr. history, but France was fatally weakened by the wars in which Condé, Turenne, Villars, and others conquered Span. and Ger. territory, and at the close of Louis’s reign the succe es of Marl borough in the War of the Spanish Succe ion 1702-13, ended with the Treaty of Utrecht, whereby Britain obtained conce ions from both Spain and France, and began to come forward as a great power. At the same time Ru ia under Peter the Great 16821725, had become the chief northern power. The Seven Years’ War 1756-63 brought important acce ions to Brit. territory overseas at the expense of France. By the acce ion of Louis XIV.’s grandson, Philip of Anjou, to the throne of Spain in 1700, France and Spain had been drawn together, and Bourbon ‘family compacts’ were a feature of; European politics of this time. The 4 revolt of Britain’s Amer. colonies 1775 was a isted by both France and Spain, and Brit. ill-feeling against France lasted after the Treaty of Versailles, 1783, by which the independence of U.S. was recognized. Britain, Holland, and the King of Pru ia made a Triple Alliance in 1788 to guarantee Holland The French Revolution in 1789 dwarfed every other European event; the first modern democracy was _ temporarily established; Napoleon abolished the shadowy Holy Roman Empire (the emperor retaining that title for his Austrian dominions), became dictator on the Continent, and was a perpetual menace to Britain. At last Britain, which had restrained Napoleon by sea and in Spain, succeeded in forming the great European coalition, which brought his empire to an end in 1814. By the treaties of 1815 the Bourbons were reinstated, Lombardy and Venice were made into an Austrian kingdom, and the Austrian Netherlands were annexed to Holland. In nearly every country of Europe monarchs now carried out repre ive measures against the beginnings of democratic agitation, Ru ia, Austria and Pru ia forming @ Holy Alliance for the purpose in 1915. Risings in Spain and Portugal started in 1820, and the Carbonari movement commenced in Italy. The Holy Alliance succe fully put down the Ital. rebels, but, with the defection of Ru ia to the Gr. side and aid of Britain, the Gr. revolt against the Turks resulted in the establishment of Gr. independence 1827. This war, in which Britain was compelled to play into the hands of Ru ia, was the beginning of the 19th cent. crusade of Ru ia against Turkey. The Crime an War 1854-6, showed the dread, of the powers of Ru ian extension in Europe. The July revolution of 1830 in France established the limited Orleanist monarchy overthrown in the year of revolutions 1848. Italy, Hungary, and Vienna itself rose against Austria, Italy becoming an independent kingdom 1861, and Hungary winning self-government under the dual system 1867 of Austria Hungary.: Britain had to deal with its Chartist movements. The preeminence of Pru ia in Germany was shortly afterwards recognized. Pru ia had been slowly growing into a strong state since the early 17th cent., and had defeated Austria in her War of Succe ion. She ~ - IMG:map469.jpg: IMG:map471.jpg: IMG:map468.jpg: