Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/305

Rh from Savoy by the narrow strip of the Rhone Valley. Much of it is a plateau elevated above two thousand feet, rising into mountains which touch three thousand feet in altitude. Its climate is unpropitious; its soil is sterile; impossible for the vine, and in general even for wheat. Rye or barley alone can be here successfully raised. At the present time this region is almost entirely given over to grazing. It has vast possibilities for the extractive arts; but those meant nothing until the present century. For all these reasons Auvergne presents a second degree



of isolation. It lacks all economic attractiveness; but it is not rugged enough in general to be inaccessible or completely defensible as is Savoy.

Brittany, or Armorica, the third area of isolation, is perhaps somewhat less unattractive economically than Auvergne. It is certainly less rugged. Extending in as far as the cities of Anglers and Alençon, it is saved from the extreme infertility of its primitive rock formation by the moisture of its climate. Neither volcanic, as are many parts of Auvergne, nor elevated—seldom rising above fourteen hundred feet—it corresponds to our own