Part 16 (1/2)

[16] _Job_, X, 21.

[17] See page 28.

[18] See the ill.u.s.trations, pages 27, 54, 58, 63.

[19] See page 13.

[20] See page 186, note 2.

[21] See page 48.

[22] See the ill.u.s.tration, page 46.

CHAPTER IV

THE LANDS OF THE WEST AND THE RISE OF GREECE TO ABOUT 500 B.C. [1]

20. PHYSICAL EUROPE

EUROPE A PENINSULA OF ASIA

The continent of Asia, projecting its huge bulk southwestward between the seas, gradually narrows into the smaller continent of Europe. The boundary between the two regions is not well defined. Ancient geographers found a convenient dividing line north of the Black Sea in the course of the river Don. Modern map makers usually place the division at the Ural Mountains, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus. Each of these boundaries is more or less arbitrary. In a geographical sense Europe is only the largest of the great Asiatic peninsulas.

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF EUROPE

But in physical features the two continents disclose the most striking contrasts. The sea, which washes only the remote edges of Asia, penetrates deeply into Europe and forms an extremely irregular coast line with numerous bays and harbors. The mountains of Europe, seldom very high and provided with easy pa.s.ses, present no such barriers to intercourse as the mightier ranges of Asia. We miss in Europe the extensive deserts and barren table-lands which form such a feature of Asiatic geography. With the exception of Russia the surface, generally, is distributed into plains, hills, and valleys of moderate size. Instead of a few large rivers, such as are found in Asia, Europe is well supplied with numerous streams that make it possible to travel readily from one district to another.

CENTRAL AND NORTHERN EUROPE

The almost unbroken mountain chain formed by the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Balkans, sharply separates the central land ma.s.s of Europe from the regions to the south. Central Europe consists, in general, of lowlands, which widen eastward into the vast Russian plain. Northern Europe includes the British Isles, physically an extension of Europe, and the peninsulas of Scandinavia and Finland, between the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

Twenty centuries ago central and northern Europe was a land of forests and marshes, of desolate steppes and icebound hills. The peoples who inhabited it--Celts in the west, Teutons or Germans in the north, Slavs in the east --were men of Indo-European [2] race and speech. They were still barbarians. During ancient times we hear little of them, except as their occasional migrations southward brought them into contact with the Greeks and the Romans.

SOUTHERN EUROPE

Southern Europe comprises the three peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and the Balkans, which reach far south into the Mediterranean. This great inland sea is divided into two parts near the center, where Africa and the island of Sicily almost touch each other across a narrow strait. The eastern part contains several minor seas, of which the one called the Aegean had most importance in Greek history.

21. GREECE AND THE AEGEAN

THE AEGEAN SEA

The Aegean is an almost landlocked body of water. The Balkan peninsula, narrowing toward the Mediterranean into the smaller peninsula of Greece, confines it on the west. On the east it meets a boundary in Asia Minor.

The southern boundary is formed by a chain of islands, while the only opening northward is found in the narrow pa.s.sage leading to the Black Sea.

The coasts and islands of the Aegean thus make up a little world set off by itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, PHYSICAL MAP OF EUROPE]

CONTINENTAL GREECE