Page:EB1911 - Volume 09.djvu/954

Rh or ecclesiastical liturgies. Besides all those which are spoken over extensive territories, and some even which are confined within very narrow limits, are broken up into several distinct dialects.

The boundaries of European countries have of course been determined by history, and in some cases only historical events can be held to account for their general situation, the influence of geographical conditions being seen only on a minute examination of details. In most

cases, however, it is otherwise. The present political boundaries were all settled when the general distribution of population in the continent was in a large measure determined by the geographical conditions, and accordingly the lines along which they run for the most part show the influence of such conditions very clearly, and thus present in many cases a marked contrast to the political boundaries in America and Australia, where the boundaries have often been marked out in advance of the population. In Europe the general rule is that the boundaries tend to run through some thinly peopled strip or tract of country, such as is formed by mountain ranges, elevated tablelands too bleak for cultivation, relatively high ground of no great altitude where soil and climate are less favourable to cultivation than the lower land on either side, or low ground occupied by heaths or marshes or some other sterile soil; but it is the exception for important navigable rivers to form boundaries between countries or even between important administrative divisions of countries, and for such exceptions a special explanation can generally be found. Navigable rivers unite rather than separate, for the obvious reason that they generally flow through populous valleys, and the vessels that pass up and down can touch as easily on one side as the other. Minor rivers, on the other hand, flowing through sparsely peopled valleys frequently form portions of political boundaries simply because they are convenient lines of demarcation. A brief examination of the present political map of Europe will serve to illustrate these rules.

The eastern frontier of the Netherlands begins by running southwards through a marsh nearly parallel to the Ems but nowhere touching it, then winds south or south-westwards through a rather sparsely peopled district to the Rhine. This river it crosses, it then approaches but does not touch the Meuse, but runs for a considerable distance roughly parallel to that river along higher ground, where the population is much more scanty than in the valley. On the side of Belgium the Dutch boundary is for the most part thoroughly typical, winding between the dreariest parts of the Dutch or Belgium provinces of North Brabant, Limburg and Antwerp. The Scheldt nowhere forms a boundary between countries, not even at its wide estuary. The eastern frontier of Belgium is quite typical both on the side of Germany and Luxemburg. It is otherwise, however, on the south, there that country confines with France, and indeed the whole of the north-east frontier of France may be called a historical frontier, showing the influence of geographical conditions only in details. One of these details, however, deserves attention, the tongue in which it advances northwards into Belgium so as to give to France the natural fortress of Givet, a tongue, be it noted, the outline of which is as typical a boundary as is to be seen in Europe in respect of scantiness of population, apart from the fortress.

The mountainous frontiers of France on the east and south require hardly any comment. Only in the Burgundy Gate between the Vosges and the Jura has an artificial boundary had to be drawn, and even that in a minor degree illustrates the general rule. The division of the Iberian peninsula between Spain and Portugal goes back in effect to the Christian reaction against the Moors. The valley of the Miño and its tributaries establishes a natural connexion between Galicia and the rest of Spain; but an independent crusade against the Moors starting from the lower part of the valley of the Douro resulted in the formation of the kingdom of Portugal, which found its natural eastern limit on the scantily peopled margin of the Iberian tableland, where the rivers cease to be navigable and flow through narrow gorges, that of the Tagus, where the river marks the frontier, being almost without inhabitants, especially on the Spanish side.

The greater part of the Italian boundary is very clearly marked geographically, though we have to look back to the weakness of divided Italy to account for the instances in which northern mountaineers have pushed their way into southern Alpine valleys. Even in these parts, however, there are interesting illustrations of geographical influence in the way in which the Italian boundary crosses the northern ends of the Lago Maggiore and the Lake of Garda, and cuts off portions of Lake Lugano both in the east and west. In all these cases the frontier crosses from one steep unpeopled slope to another, assigning the population at different ends or on different sides of the lakes to the country to which belongs the adjacent population not lying on their shores.

Of the Swiss frontiers all that it is necessary to remark is that the river Rhine in more than one place marks the boundary, in one, however, where it traverses alluvial flats liable to inundation (on the side of Austria), in the other place where it rushes through a gorge below the falls of Schaffhausen. The southern frontier of Germany is almost throughout typical, the northern is the sea, except where a really artificial boundary runs through Jutland.

In the east of Germany and the north-east of Austria the winding frontier through low plains is the result of the partition of Poland, but in spite of the absence of marked physical features it is for the most part in its details almost as typical as the mountainous frontier on the south of Germany. All the great rivers are crossed. Most of the line runs through a tract of strikingly scanty population, and the dense population in one part of it, where upper Silesia confines with Russian Poland, has been developed since the boundary was fixed.

In the Balkan Peninsula the most striking facts are that the Balkans do not, and the Danube to a large extent does form a boundary. Geographical features, however, bring the valley of the Maritsa (eastern Rumelia) into intimate relation with upper Bulgaria, the connexion of which with Bulgaria north of the Balkans had long been established by the valley of the Isker, narrow as that valley is. On the side of Rumania, again, it is the marshes on the left bank of the Danube even more than the river itself that make of that river a frontier. An examination of the eastern boundary of all that is included in Russia in Europe will furnish further illustrations of the general rule.

Finally, on the north-west of Russia it was only natural that the Tornea and the Tana should be taken as lines of demarcation in that thinly peopled region, and it was equally natural that where the