Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/711

Rh EUROPE 681 social organizations have been disintegrated and re formed under the pressure of new necessities and desires. And in a way in which they have never been realized before, it has within the present century realized two master principles of progress the regularity of nature and its am .inability to multiplex investigation and control, and the necessity of impartial recognition at once of the moral individuality of the individual and the social and political solidarity of the several members of the community. Though Europe is naturally the best known of all the regions of the globe, yet even of its physical features an absolutely correct registration has not been attained. It is the only continent of which we possess an approximately complete cartography ; but in spite of the geodetic labours which have been carried on since about the middle of last century with ever growing activity, much has still to be laid down on very unsatisfactory data. While in some districts, for instance, of England or France, we can find on our maps the exact locality of every hamlet or homestead, every streamlet or clump of trees, there are portions of several other countries where the main physical features are but vaguely indicated. A considerable part of Finland is prac tically unexplored ; and it was not until 1875 that the labours of Kanitz furnished a fair representation of the Balkan range. Nor is it only about such outlying regions as Turkey and Finland that our information is either scanty or of the most recent acquisition ; the topographical survey of Switzerland, which first provided the Alpine traveller with an authentic guide, was completed by Dufour only in 1865, and the corresponding surveys of England, Italy, .Spain, llussia, &c., are still in progress. Till the last country in Europe has been thus triangulated, we must be content with more or less approximate estimates of areas and distances : in two recent statements of the area of Por tugal there is a difference of no less than 104 English square miles (4 89 German geog. sq. m.,or 269 05 sq. kil.), so that the possible error for the whole of the continent must be something considerable. Even the astronomical distance between Paris and Berlin cannot be given with absolute accuracy. ounl- Owing to its peninsular conformation the present boundaries of Europe are on three sides easily stated : its western shores form the irregular rim of the great basin of O O the Xorth Atlantic, and bear witness in their dilapidated headlands and sandy dunes to the power and fury of its tides and storms ; on the N. it lies along the Arctic Ocean ; and on the S. it is separated from Africa and Asia by the Mediterranean, the Sea of Marmora, the Black Sea, and their connecting straits. Towards the east, on the other hand, the boundary is almost purely conventional : the Ural Mountains, indeed, may be regarded as furnishing a sort of natural barrier, but they leave a considerable gap both towards the N. and the S. In the S. the river Ural i.s usually accepted as the line of demarcation, though the plain through which it flows is perfectly similar on both sides, and it forms neither a geological, faunal, botanical, political, nor historical limit. In the administrative divisions of the Russian empire, which has no desire to make a severe distinction between its Asiatic and European territory, even the line of the Ural Mountains is disre garded : 39,515 square miles (186002 German geog. sq. miles, 102,418-1 sq. kil.) of the government of Orenburg, 49,333 square miles (2320 425 German geog. sq. in., 1 2 7, 7 69 - 3 sq. kil.) of the government of Perm, and 297 6 t&amp;gt;q. miles (14 Germ. geog. sq. in., 812 9 sq. kil.) of the governmont of Ufa lie to the E. of the range. Across the peninsula between the Black Sea and the Caspian, the line of the Caucasus is now accepted as the boun dary. The British islands have been separated from the Continent in a comparatively recent geological period, and really form the prominences of a submerged plateau which at one time must have presented a long and regular coast to the Atlantic. Iceland, though distant more than 600 miles, and geologically, it may be, of independent origin, is usually reckoned as an outlying portion of Europe. Nova Zemlya and Waigatch may also be included ; but Spitsbergen is more accurately assigned to the Arctic archipelago. In the Mediterranean the Balearic islands are conventionally attached to Spain, Corsica to France, and Sardinia, Sicily, and the Pantellarian grouplet to Italy. Malta is also re garded as European. Among the central islands of the great archipelago between the Balkan peninsula and Asia Minor it is hard to find a lino of demarcation ; but the Cyclades, as part of the kingdom of Greece, may be con sidered to belong to the western, and the rest of the islands to the eastern continent. Properly speaking, they are both Asiatic and European, and for that very reason neither European nor Asiatic. The four corners of Europe are marked by the mouth Extent of the Kara on the Arctic Ocean in the N.E., 69&quot; N. lat. and 65 c E. long. ; by the North Cape on the Arctic Ocean hi the N.W., 71 11 N. lat. and 25 50 E. long.; by Cape Tarifa on the Atlantic in the S.W., 36 N&quot;. lat. and 5 36 W. long. ; and by Cape Apsheron on the Caspian Sea in the S.E., 40 12 N. lat. and 50 20 E. long. Its most northern point as a continent is Cape Nordkun in Norway, 71 7 N. lat ; its most southern, Cape Matapan in Greece, 36 24 N. lat. ; its most western, Cape da Roca in Portugal, 9 31 W. long. ; and its moat eastern, a spot at the junction of the Ural range with the Grossland s Pvidge in 66 E. long. A line drawn from Cape St Vincent in Portugal to the Ural Mountains near Ekaterinburg has a length of 3293 miles, and finds it centra in the W. of Russian Poland. From the mouth of the Kara to the mouth of the Ural river the direct distance is 1600 miles, but the boundary line has a length of 2400 miles. The total area of the continent, according to Behm and Wagner s calculation, is 179,833 37 German sq. miles, 9,902,149 sq. kilometres, or 3,823,383 &quot;32 Eng lish sq. miles ; so that it forms rather more than a thir teenth part of the whole land surface of the globe. Asia is about 4i times, and America about 4| times as large. The total population in round numbers is 309,178,300, which gives an average of 1719 for the German mile, 31 2 for the square kilometre, and 808 for the English sq. mile considerably more than the average of any other of the continents. Two of the most striking features in the general con- Coast- formation of Europe are the great number of its primary une- and secondary peninsulas, and the consequent exceptional development of its coast-line, an irregularity and develop ment which have been the most potent of the physical factors of its history. The peninsulas which are of most historic interest are those which trend southward into the Mediterranean : the Balkan peninsula terminating in the wonderful cluster of peninsulas and islands which bears the name of Greece, the long Italian peninsula with Sicily at its foot, and the massive Pyrenean peninsula, so thoroughly shut off by its mountain isthmus that in ordinary language it is distinguished as the Peninsula par excellence. The northern peninsulas are much less symmetrical in their arrangement, and have exercised less influence on the history of Europe. The total coast-line is estimated at 19,820 miles, of which about 3600 belong to the Arctic Ocean, 8390 to the Atlantic, and 7830 to the Black Sea and Mediterranean. This gives 1 mile of coast to 192 miles of area, which is a higher rate than that of any of the other continents. Much of this coast-line, more especially in Norway and Spain, is of course practically useless as far as commerce is concerned, owing to the absence of natural harbours : but even when such portions are withdrawn, the VI I f. 86