Page:Maury's New Elements of Geography, 1907.djvu/113

Rh

1. Asia.—Having finished our visit to Europe, let us pass into Asia. It is sometimes called the Land of the Morning. This is because the sun rises on Asia earlier than on Europe, and so the morning light seems to come from Asia to Europe.

From this we can see that Asia lies east of Europe. It is the eastern part of Eurasia, as the great body of land that is divided into Europe and Asia is called. It is, of course, still further to the eastward of our own country. Parts of it are quite half-way round the world from us. Can you tell how many miles that is?

2. Size and Population.—Asia is more than four times the size of Europe. It is the largest of all the continents.

It contains more than half of all the people living on the earth. These people are of several different races. It will be interesting to notice how curiously many of them live.

3. The Coast Line of Asia, like that of Europe, is rough and jagged. Peninsulas jut out from it, and arms of the sea reach into it, so that Asia has plenty of sheltering harbors.



4. Surface.—-If we could be carried over the continent in a balloon, we should see that the central part is full of great mountain ranges and high plateaus. Here are the loftiest mountains in the world.



If our balloon rose as high as the top of Mount Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas (him-ah'-la-yas), we should be more than five miles above the sea.

5. Rivers.—We have seen that the Rocky mountains and the Andes are the birthplace of the those magnificent rivers, the Missouri and the Amazon. In Asia, as in North and South America, the deep snows and heavy rains that fall upon the mountains feed many grand rivers. Find some of them on the map, and tell in what mountains they rise.



6. Climate and Productions.—Asia reaches nearly from the equator to the north pole. It lies in three zones, and has every kind of climate.

On the Arctic shores we find ourselves among frozen swamps and snow fields. The people who live here are like the Eskimos of North America. They dress in furs. In this region, as in Greenland, scarcely a tree is seen, and hardly anything grows but mosses and lichens.

In Southern Asia we must use every care to