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EUROPE

Natural History. The natural history of Europe agrees very much with that of the same latitudes of Asia. The climate of the larger part is temperate, though parts of Sweden, Norway and Russia lie within the arctic circle; and portions of Spain, Sicily and Greece are about 12 degrees from the northern tropic. The temperature of western and northern Europe is raised by the Gulf Stream, the winds from the dry desert land in Africa and the large amount of moisture from the Atlantic above that found elsewhere in similar latitudes. The effect is so great that the northern limit of some plants is later reached on the Atlantic shores than in the more central parts of Europe, where the winters are much colder and the average temperature of the year is lower. Plants which require a mild winter will not grow in the north and scarcely even in the center of Europe; but they advance along the western coast under the influence of the ocean climate. The myrtle, though not native, grows in the south of England, the date-palm in the south of Europe; and among animals a species of ape is found on the rock of Gibraltar, while some strictly African birds are frequent visitors; and many birds, such as the swallow, cuckoo etc. are common to Europe and Africa, migrating in summer to northern regions and returning in winter to the warm south. Many of the plants found in the south of Europe have probably originally been brought from Africa or the east—the myrtle, vine, olive, orange, lemon, fig, peach, almond, apricot etc. are instances; while some are certainly natives of Europe, as, for example, the apple, pear, plum and cherry. Among the wild animals at the present time the bison is still reckoned, and the ox at no very remote period. The reindeer inhabits the extreme north, while the elk, stag, fallow-deer and roebuck are found further south; the ibex exists on the high central mountains; and there are two species of antelope, the Alpine chamois and the saiga of the Russian plains. Other animals are the civet, ichneumon, muskrat,

porcupine, bear, fox, lynx and wolf. The fisheries of the European seas are valuable, more particularly the herring and cod in the north and the tunney, anchovy etc. in the Mediterranean.

Races. The European races mainly belong to the various branches of the great Aryan stock, though in few of the countries is there a pure race. Generally speaking, Celtic blood is most largely found in France, in the northern part of Great Britain and in Ireland. Teutonic peoples occupy Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, part of Belgium, part of Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Great Britain. Slavonic races are found in Austria, Prussia, the Balkan peninsula and Russia. Romanic language and blood are prominent in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and Rumania. The Greeks belong to the same branch of Aryans as the Italians. The non-Aryan peoples are the Finns, Lapps and Samoyeds of the north and northeast, various Turanian tribes in the east of Russia, the Hungarians, Turks and the Basques of the Pyrenees. The total population is nearly 442,000,000—giving an average of about 116 to each square mile. The best method of classifying the races comprising this grand total is language. Using this test, we find some 108,000,000 of Europeans are Teutonic; over 95,000,000 Slavs (Russian, Polish, Czech, Croat, Serb, Slovak, Slavonian and Bulgarian); nearly 100,000,000 Romance-speaking peoples (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Walloon, Rhaetian); 3,000,000 Letts and Lithuanians; 5,250,000 Greeks and Albanians; 4,739,569 Celtic (Welsh, Breton, Irish, Gaelic, Manx); 1,050,000 Armenians, Ossetians and Gypsies. Some 18,000,000 are non-Aryan (Magyars, Finns, Ugrians, Tartars, Turks, Kalmucks, Basques, Circassians, etc. and Maltese). Upward of 50 languages are spoken in Europe.

Religions. In religion, Europeans are largely Christians, though there are Buddhist Kalmucks in southern Russia and pagans among the Lapps, Finns, Samoyeds and Tcheremisses. The Turks, many Albanians and some Russian Tartars and Slavs are Mohammedans (6,629,000). There are 6,456,000 Jews. The Roman Catholic church has 160,165,000 adherents, the Greek church 89,196,000, while the various Protestant churches include about 80,812,000.

The early history of Europe is that of Rome, Greece and the Byzantine empire, (which see). On the death of Theodosius (395 B. C.) the Roman empire was divided finally into two parts: the Latin empire or Empire of the West, with Rome as its capital; and the Greek empire or Empire of the East, the capital of which was at Constantinople. Beyond the boundaries of the Roman world was a great barbaric people, divided into two