Page:EB1911 - Volume 09.djvu/949

Rh important producer of sulphur. Among other mineral products may be mentioned the boric acid and statuary marble of Tuscany, the statuary marble of Greece, the asphalt of Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Austria-Hungary, the slates of Wales, Scotland and France, the kaolin of Germany, England and France, and the abundant glass sands of Belgium, France and Bohemia.

With regard to commerce, industries and railways, as a whole, Europe may be said to be characterized by the rapid development of manufacturing at the expense of agricultural industry. With few exceptions the countries of Europe that export

agricultural products are able to spare a diminishing proportion of the aggregate of such produce for export. Other countries are becoming more and more dependent on imported agricultural products. Most European countries, even if not able to export a large proportion of manufactured articles, are at least securing a greater and greater command of the home market for such products. Inland centres of manufacturing industry are extending the range of their markets. All these changes have been largely, if not chiefly, promoted by the improvements in the means of communication, and the methods of transport by sea and land. Larger ships more economically propelled have brought grain at a cheaper and cheaper rate from all parts of the world, and improved methods of refrigeration have made fresh meat, butter and other perishable commodities even from the southern hemisphere articles of rapidly growing importance in European markets. Improvements in transport have likewise tended to cheapen British coal in many parts of the mainland of Europe. On the other hand, the extension of the railway network of the continent has brought a wider area within the domain of the manufacturing regions associated with the coalfields occurring at intervals in central Europe from the upper Oder to the basin of the Ruhr, as well as some of the more detached coalfields of Russia. As affecting the relative advantages of different European countries for carrying on manufacturing industry, three inventions or discoveries of recent years may be mentioned as of capital importance: (1) the invention in 1879 of the Thomas process for the manufacture of ingot iron and steel from the phosphoric iron ores, an invention which gave a greatly enhanced value to the ores on the borders of Lorraine, Luxemburg and Alsace, as well as others both in England and on the continent; (2) the invention of efficient machines for the application of power by means of electricity, an invention which gave greatly increased importance to the water-power of mountainous countries; and (3) the discovery of the fact that from lignite an even higher grade of producer gas may be obtained than from coal, a discovery obviously of special importance for the great lignite-producing districts of Germany and Bohemia.

Such particulars

as can be procured with regard to the utilization of water-power in the countries of Europe which use that source of power most largely are given in the following table:—

1899 .. 575 .. 1904 2581 650 25 Austria-Hungary 1902 .. 437 .. Italy 1899 <td >2209 <td >337  <td >15 <td >Sweden <td >1903 <td >453 <td >.. <td >about 50 <td >Norway <td >1904 <td >254 <td >186  <td >73 <td rowspan="5"> <td >1895 <td >153  <td >88  <td >58 <td >1895 <td >153 <td >95 <td >62 <td >1901 <td >320 <td >185  <td >58 <td >1901 <td >320 <td >223 <td >70 <td >1905 <td >516 <td >? <td >?

The figures derived from the three recent industrial censuses of Switzerland are very instructive, especially if one is justified in including the electric among the hydraulic installations. The estimates that have been made of the total available water-power in a few European countries are mostly based on such problematical data that they are not worth giving. One very uncertain element in such calculations is the amount of water-power that is capable of being artificially created by the construction of valley-dams, such as have been erected on a small scale in the Harz and other mining and smelting regions of Germany from an early date, and are now being built on a much larger scale in the Rhine region and other parts of Europe, or is incidentally provided in the construction of canals.

The commercial history of Europe has illustrated from the earliest

times the influence of the outline and physical features in determining great trade-routes along certain lines. At all periods land routes have connected the southern seas with the Baltic and the North Sea, effecting the great saving of distance more or less indicated by the following table:—

From the form of the continent it obviously results that the farther east the route lies the greater is the saving of distance. The precise direction of the routes has been very largely fixed, however, by the physical features; by the course of the rivers where navigable rivers formed parts of the routes; in other cases by the situation and form of the mountains, or the direction of the river valleys which is implied in the form of the mountains. From the Black Sea the most convenient starting-point is obviously towards the west, and two connecting routes with the Baltic lie wholly to the east of the mountains. One route makes use of the Bug or the Dniester, the San and the Vistula so far as possible, while another starting in the same way proceeds round the foot-hills of the Carpathians, thus finding easy crossing places on the head-streams of the rivers, as far as the Oder and then down that stream. Another route is up the Danube to the neighbourhood of Vienna, and then north-eastwards through the opening between the Carpathians and the Sudetic range to the head-waters of the Oder, crossing a water-parting little more than 1000 ft. in altitude. The first route was certainly used again and again by the ancient Greeks, starting from Olbia near the mouth of the Bug, the objective point being the coast in the south-east of the Baltic supplying the amber which was so important an article of commerce in early times. This route was again much used in the middle ages, when Visby, on Gotland, undoubtedly selected on account of the security afforded by an island station, was for hundreds of years an important centre of trade both in northern products (of which furs were the most valuable) and those of the East (pepper and other spices, silks and other costly articles). Numerous coins, Roman, Byzantine and Arabic, found not merely in Gotland itself but also at various points along the route indicated, testify to the long-continued importance of this route. In the middle ages the Oder route was also largely used whether reached by rounding the Carpathians or ascending the Danube, and in connexion with that route the island of Bornholm long formed a focus of commerce answering to that in Gotland farther east. The Danube route was also made use of farther west, and formed a large part of a great route connecting the East with the north-west of Europe. The valuable goods of the Orient could be conveyed up-stream as high as Ratisbon (Regensburg), and thence north-westward across Nuremberg to Frankfort-on-Main, from which access was had to the Rhine gorge leading on to Cologne and the ports of Dordrecht and Rotterdam, Bruges and Ghent; or they could be carried still farther up-stream to Ulm, thence by a route winding through the north of the Black Forest to Strassburg and from that point north of the Vosges to the Marne and Seine.

Farther west use was made at an early date of passes by which the whole system of the Alps could be crossed, or partly crossed and partly rounded, in a single rise. The ancient Etruscans, in exchanging their earthenware and bronzes for the amber found largely in those