Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/409

Rh

NATURAL

Hellenic Region

REGIONS

ELEVATIONS IN MET

I Over 1500 0-500

2 Thraco- Macedonian Littoral Transition Region

3 Lower Danabian P/ateau.

4 Maritsa Basin 1a.Su.b-Ba/lfan Depression

5 Upper /sker Basin Region

6 morara, or Shumadiya , /fey/on 6a Bosnian Sab- Region

7 Centra/, or Rushka, Region

8 Lower I/ardor Sab-Region 8a Macedonian Lake Sab-Region

9 Dinaric Region

10 Pindus Region

1000-1500 500-1000

Natural Scale English

I 7,000,000

Miles

50 100

Kilometres

MEDITERRANEAN

Long. East or Greenwich

FIG. i.

low passes render communication easier. The lower Danubian plateau is the only part of this region in which relief, climate and production are almost uniform; the unbroken monotonous surface is dissected regularly by deep-cut asymmetric valleys facing fault scarps, running from S. by W. to N. by E. Like southern Russia and Rumania, it is covered with neogene sediments and loess of wonderful fertility, but trees and grass are very scarce out of the valleys, the water table being too deep down. During excessively dry summers the small streams cease to flow, and in cold winters even the Danube is frozen. Summer droughts make the crops of wheat uncertain. The characteristics of extreme continental climate and vegetation increase eastward in Dobrudja and favoured the settlement of the steppe Slavs and Ugro-Finnish Bulgars, while the uniformity of relief and the proximity of Constantinople made control of the country by the Turks easy.

The central and western Balkans stand out in contrast: high hill masses of palaeozoic schists, granite and mesozoic rocks, often chalk, are bounded on the south by abrupt fault scarps of a few hundred metres overlooking the plains, and, on the north, gradually fall in folded ranges. The eastern Balkans, consisting of sandstone, schists, flysch, are lower. Unlike the mountains of the central parts of the peninsula, the folded Balkans contain few faulted basins (Orhaniye). Except for the Yantra and Isker running south-north through the massifs and the Kamtshiya and Provadiya running west-east through epigenetic ravines, they have an undiversified drainage and are like the basins cultivated with oats, barley and potatoes, while cattle are raised on the grassy and forested hills. Between the schists and granites of the Rhodopes and the mesozoic rocks of the Balkans lies the tectonic basin of the Maritsa, showing strata of sandstone and paleogene limestone below alluvial deposits. The climate varies :

it is Mediterranean as far north as Philippopolis, favouring the cultivation of maize, tobacco, the pepper plant, the vine and mul- berry trees along the Maritsa; in the east around Jamboli and Stara Zagora a steppe climate prevails, favouring wheat. The small tectonic basins of the sub-Balkan depression are liable to lesser extremes of climate and are well known for their rose gardens as at Kazanlik and fruit orchards as at Zlatitsa. The whole region facing Constantinople felt Byzantine or Asiatic influences strongly and was the first domain of the Bogomils during the Middle Ages.

West of Sofia, the upper Isker basin is a natural Viskar unit. In the centre, the Viskar and Lulyin mountains are an area of eruptive rocks and mesozoic strata folded east-west and surrounded by low limestone ridges, gentle on the north (Srbnitsa) and ragged on the south (Vlashka). Isolated tectonic basins and karstic depressions, such as Kyustendil and Grahovo, are the only cultivable areas. The country, poor and deforested, is a barrier to communication the Shop tribe lives there under primitive conditions with Bulgars settled at the approaches. Sofia overlooks the Isker, Struma and Nishava, leading respectively to the Danube, to the Aegean and to the Morava-Vardar. To the south, the Rhodope system, a high mass showing glacial valleys and cirques, and almost perennial snows, is covered with forests or meadows partly inhabited by Pomaks, Yuruks and by transhumant Kutzo-Vlachs (see fig. 3).

Unlike the Balkan the Morava-Vardar region is not open to eastern influences. Its main communications are longitudinal, along a depression leading from Central Europe to the Aegean Sea. Various formations are displayed in the relief the pretertiary Rhodope mass, the tertiary Dinaric and Carpathic ranges, the eruptive rocks of the Ibar and Bregalnitsa with their rich iron and copper fields, most of them by their great height impeding the west-east