Europe

EUROPE, the smallest (except Australia) of those principal divisions of the land-surface of the globe which are usually dis tinguished by the conventional name of continents.

Individuality of the Continent.

The earliest mention of Europe is in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, but there Europe is not the name of a continent, but is opposed to the Peloponnesus and the islands of the Aegean. The distinction between Europe and Asia is found, however, in Aeschylus in the 5th century B.C., but there seems to be little doubt that this opposition was learnt by the Greeks from some Asiatic people. On Assyrian monu ments the contrast between asu "(the land of) the rising sun," and ereb or irib "(the land of) darkness" or "the setting sun," is frequent, and these names were probably passed on by the Phoenicians to the Greeks, and gave rise to the names of Asia and Europe. Where the names originated the geographical distinc tion was clearly marked by the intervention of the sea, and this intervention marked equally clearly the distinction between Europe and Libya (Africa). The difficulty of fixing the boundary be tween Europe and Asia where there is land connection has always caused uncertainty in the application of the two names, but never obscured the necessity for recognizing the distinction. Even in the 3rd century B.C. Europe was regarded by Eratosthenes as including all that was then known of northern Asia. But physical features and climate finally determined that what we know as Europe came to be occupied by more or less populous regions in intimate relation with one another, but separated on the east by sparsely peopled areas from the countries of Asia, and the bound ary between the two continents has long been recognized as run ning somewhere through this area. Within the limits thus marked out on the east and on other sides by the sea, the climatic condi tions are such that inhabitants are capable of and require a civili zation of essentially the same type, based upon cultivation of grain. Those inhabitants have had a common history in a greater measure than those of any other continent, and hence, however divided among themselves, are more thoroughly conscious of their dissimilarities from, than of their consanguinity with, the peoples of the east and the south.

Officially the crest of the Caucasus and that of the Urals were formerly regarded in Russia as the boundaries between Europe and Asia on the south-east and east respectively, although in the Urals it is impossible to mark out any continuous crest, though they form a boundary to some extent in climate and vegetation (v. inf.).

Extent.

The following calculations in English square miles (round numbers) of the area of Europe, within different limits, were given in Behm and Wagner's Bevolkerung der Erde, No. viii. (Gotha, Justus Perthes, , p. 53 —Europe within the narrowest physical limits (to the crest of the Urals and the Manych depression, and including the Sea of Azov, but excluding the Caspian steppe, Iceland, Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and Bear island) 3,5 70,000 square miles. The same, with the addition of the Caspian steppe up to the Ural river and the Caspian sea, square miles. The same, with the addition of the area between the Manych depression and the Caucasus, 3,790,500 square miles. The same, with the addition of territories east of the Ural mountains, the portion of the Caspian steppe east of the Ural river as far as the Emba, and the southern slopes of the Caucasus, 3,988,50o square miles. The same, with Iceland, Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and Bear island, 4,093,000 square miles. In all these calculations the islands in the Sea of Marmora, the Canary islands, Madeira, and even the Azores, are excluded, but all the Greek islands of the Aegean sea and the islands of Thasos, Lemnos, Samothrace, Imbros, Hagiostrati or Bozbaba, and even Tenedos, are included.

The most northern point of the mainland area is Cape Nordkyn in Norway, 71° 6' N. ; its most southern, Cape Tarifa in Spain, in 36° o' N.; its most western, Cape da Roca in Portugal, 9° 27'W ; and its most eastern, a spot near the north end of the Ural moun tains, in 66° 20' E. A line drawn from Cape St. Vicent in Portugal to the Ural mountains near Ekaterinburg has a length of 3,293 m., and finds its centre in the west of Russian Poland. From the mouth of the Kara to the mouth of the Ural river the direct distance is 1,600 m., but the boundary line has a length of 2,400 miles.

Distribution of Land and Water.

Europe is unique among the continents in that no other is so deeply penetrated by the sea; the result is that it is composed of two compound peninsulas on the west flank of the Russian plain. The present relations of sea and land have obtained, with minor but important variations, during the historic period. Aquileia and Ravenna have been separated from the sea by a process of silting and the Rhone delta has grown (see R. D. Oldham, Geog. Journ., London, lxv., 1925, P. 403) ; the North sea coasts have been attacked by the sea in several places but locally land has been added here and there; the opinion has been strongly held that land is rising out of the sea (or the sea level sinking) in Scandinavia; local tradition emphasizes attacks of the sea in the Gulf of Avranches, and there have been many changes in the volcanic zones of the Mediter ranean. Earthquakes are reported for all Europe save the very stable Russian plain; there is thus no indication of finality in the form of Europe and it has certainly altered considerably since the beginning of the human period. The opinion is held by many that the land stood higher during the maximal ice phases of the Pleistocene glaciation, and, however this may be, there is abundant evidence of the fact that the last conspicuous movement has been at the expense of the land, and archaeological hints suggest that such movements may have been important in western Europe towards the end of the 3rd millennium B.C. as well as earlier. It is thus a feature of Europe that detached frag ments of one-time continental land now form islands in great profusion along its coasts and in its penetrating seas, and these islands have played a great part in the early development of mari time commerce and of the general development of civilization. The coasts of south Spain, Italy and North Africa lie parallel to the great curves of fold mountains and are not rich in islands save near the volcanic zone of south Italy. Though the east coast of the Adriatic is in the main parallel to the line of mountains, yet that line is really a group of lines which bend successively westwards from the general north-westward direction with the result that the broken and partly sunken ends form numerous islands set obliquely or sub-parallel to the coast. The northern Aegean has islands which may be mainly unsubmerged remnants of a sunken old block, but many islands of this area are in chains that show them to be emergent hilltops of a partially drowned mountain line. Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia and the Balearic isles belong to the systems of fold mountains and old blocks of the western Mediterranean basin, Sicily being largely fold mountain and volcanic material, the Balearics also a part of one of the fold mountain-arcs, and Sardinia and most of Corsica surviving frag ments of a Hercynian block.

Whereas, in the Mediterranean, coast and mountain-fold are often, but not always parallel, this occurs but rarely in any direct way in Atlantic Europe, in which Hercynian and other blocks variously broken project into the sea and give a coast that usually cuts across the grain of the land and is characterized by large numbers of drowned valleys in Spanish Galicia, Brittany, western Britain and Ireland and Norway, the northern ones being heavily modified by ice-action. Whereas the St. George's and English Channels seem to be essentially drowned valleys, it is possible to describe the North sea as having coasts along which the European plain shelves down gently under water, and much the same can be said of the Baltic, large areas of which are very shallow indeed. The islands of Denmark and the Estonian coast as well as the Aland islands are merely unsubmerged fragments as on a larger scale are the British Isles, the Orkneys and Shetlands. As the coasts of Norway and Scotland are in part at least fracture-lines of an ancient land block, though the original directives (N.E. S.W.) are the main ones still, these coasts are fringed with islands parallel or sub-parallel to the coasts, usually leaving channels along the coasts inside the islands (Vest Fjord, the Minch) that played a great part in the early centuries of navigation. The Black sea has a shelving north shore but its south shore is parallel to high structural lines and characteristically drops into deep water. This relation of deep water near coasts flanked by high structural lines is illustrated in the west Mediterranean and, to a certain extent, off the north coast of Spain as well as off the Norwegian coast, but not in the Adriatic, the shallowness of which contrasts markedly with the great depths of the Mediterranean basins. The White sea, Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Bothnia all have shelving shores and shallow water and represent portions of the European plain now covered by sea, the sea having within the human period also covered south central Sweden as well as a zone between the Gulf of Finland and the White Sea at times. These relations are important for the understanding of the distribution of European lakes (v. inf.).

Mountains.

The most outstanding physical feature of Europe is the series of great mountain ranges of the Alpine system of Suess (see section on Geology), characterized by curved lines of heights in the Balkan peninsula, the Carpathians, the Alps and Apennines, the Atlas of North Africa and the Sierra Nevada, with the Pyrenees as a related range. To the south-west these mountain ranges enclose such basins as the shallow one of the Adriatic and the deep one of the western Mediterranean, to the south-east the sunken area of the Aegean, all with volcanic and earthquake zones of disastrous importance. Within the mountain curves are rich lowlands such as those of Rumanian Wallachia, Hungary and the Po Basin. To the north and north-west of the Alpine system stand the remnants of the Hercynian and earlier chains (see section on Geology), mostly showing forms completely planed down and then uplifted afresh as blocks to be dissected afresh by wind, water and ice. The Spanish plateau, the central plateau of France, the Vosges and Black Forest, the Ardennes and Eifel, the hills of central Germany, Bohemia and much of its hill frame all illustrate the condition just described and some like the central plateau of France show striking irregularity of surface resulting from volcanic activities affecting these regions and probably related to the uprise of the Alps. This zone of old, round shouldered mountains stands out from the European plain which lies mainly to its north; the chief part of this plain may be said to stretch from south and east England, with the North sea covering a part of it, past the war-tried gate of Ypres in the gap west of the Ardennes, to Germany and Poland where it widens out into the vast Russian lowland. The Paris Basin (see FRANCE) is a portion outlying southwards.

North-westwards beyond the European plain as just defined we have mainly along south-west–north-east lines in Ireland, Scot land and Scandinavia, the old mountain masses of the Caledonian system of Suess (see section on Geology), with features showing that they were worn-down to a dead level and re-uplifted perhaps more than once ; this topography is at any rate highly complex and owes some of its most striking features, such as the sharp coasts of Norway and west Scotland and Ireland, to the process of formation of the Norway sea and northernmost Atlantic men tioned in the Geological section. There is much evidence of vol canicity in connection with the changes involved, and volcanoes are still active in Iceland at the end of the long ridge, now largely submerged, which extends north-westward by way of the Faroe islands. The Scandinavian highland is by far the largest highland structural unit in Europe unless the whole Balkan peninsula be counted as a unit. These broad topographical facts are compli cated by influences of the Ice age which modified the valleys of Norway, west Scotland and Wales into their present steep-sided forms and, while exercising similar influences farther to the south east, affected the Swedish side of the Scandinavian and the European plain to the east and south largely by deposition of immense moraines. These form lines of hills along the Prussian plain (see GERMANY and BERLIN) and are major topographical features in Denmark, central Sweden and south Sweden and Finland. Moraines also occur around the Alpine chains, but in a region of such striking topography they play a lesser part.

The Alpine system, broadly, forms in the west a dividing line between the region of marine basins with coastal hills and islands on the south and the broken hills and wide plains of the north. The former region, in which maritime intercourse and exchange began early, developed cities as a feature of its civilization long before the lands to the north. But the disposition of the Alpine system allows the oceanic westerly winds to penetrate far east wards in summer however completely the dense cold air on the Russian plain may keep them out in winter. Thus oak, maples, elms, ashes, etc., are able to grow as far east as the Urals though hardly beyond. This climatic relation has permitted the gradual acclimatization of cereal cultivation and village-life and eventu ally the rise of trade and cities in northern Europe. The southern border of the Alpine system, apart from this line in the broken area of the Aegean, may thus be said to divide the civilization of Europe into two parts one in which cities are of immense antiquity, the other in which agricultural villages are a fundamental human characteristic, and no city existed until more than 2,00o years after Knossos in the south had become a metropolis.

Rivers.—The penetration of the seas into the land, the broken topography, and the openness of the land to oceanic influences give Europe a multiplicity of rivers of the most varied types. The Danube and Po are rivers of basins within mountain-fold curves, and their alluvial basins and multitude of tributaries are charac teristic features. The rivers of the Mediterranean basin are often short, with torrent-sections followed by courses across flood plains that have in many cases become malarious; many in the east cease to flow in dry summers. The Guadalquivir, Garonne, lower Rhone and in a measure the Ebro occupy troughs between fold ranges and Hercynian blocks (see section on Geology) and the mainstream is typically beneath the edge of the Hercynian block. The Guadiana, Tagus and Douro utilize weak lines in the Spanish plateau, called the Meseta, and the two latter have deep cut sections through the plateau edge on the way down to the Portuguese coast. The Rhine system depends on weak lines in the Alpine systems in its upper parts, on the syncline between the Alps and their Jurassic foreland, on fractures in Hercynian blocks and so on; the relations and characters of its regions and their feeders are thus most complex. This has contributed not a little, on the one hand, to make the Rhine a line of communication, on the other to make the problem of useful political boundaries in this region almost a hopeless one. Though the upper parts of Weser and Elbe are related to weak lines in the Hercynian blocks, their lower courses, and the Oder and Vistula are essentially rivers of the European plain with their courses and those of their tribu taries affected by the west-to-east morainic lines mentioned above. Between these morainic lines are courses marked out for these rivers and their feeders and as these lines run for long distances, they have lent themselves to the construction of canal systems, almost without locks, which for example, played an important part in the rise of modern Germany. The Loire and Seine in France and the Thames in England drain basins that are essen tially part of the European plain, modified by slight influences of the Alpine uplifts that have given hill frames around and thus have helped them to become distinct political units, which never theless have easy communications beyond their borders.

The rivers of the Russian plain are characteristically large with sluggish currents along great stretches though, as in the case of the Dnieper, there may be a more confined and rapid section where a low rocky barrier is cut through. Whereas apart from the Danube, which owes its special length (1,644 m.) to the fact that it drains a succession of basins, the rivers of western Europe are all less than 600 m. in length, save the Rhine (709 m.), Elbe (612 m.) and Vistula (estimates vary between 596 and 646 m.), there are on the Russian plain three rivers Volga, 1,977 or 2,107 m. ; Ural 1,446 or 1,477 m. ; Dnieper (estimates vary between 1,064 and 1,328 m.) well over 1,00o m. in length and the Kama, Don and Petchora near or above this limit with the Oka, Dniester and Viatka of the same length as the Rhine and Vistula. Flooding from melting snows in spring, and the long hard frosts of winter impart further peculiarities to these Russian rivers in their rela tions with man. The drainage system of Russia is however dis tinguished from that of Finland by the fact that though moraines affect their courses, yet, broadly, it may be said that the drainage system has re-established itself in Russia subsequent to the Ice age, while in Finland this is not the case and the country is an inextricable tangle of lakes behind moraines. In Scandinavia on the Norwegian side the slopes are so steep and coastal sinking has had such marked influence that the rivers are generally torrents falling into fjords which are submerged heavily-glaciated valleys; on the Swedish side the drainage from the highland runs mainly in direct (consequent) lines and glaciation has both scarped the valley sides and left moraines with the result that there are many parallel rivers and the upper courses of several are in the form of long lakes. There are many analogous lakes in Scotland.

Lakes.—Some points concerning lakes have just been made. An important fact is that every European lake with an area of more than 30o sq.m. (as usually calculated there are at least 17), be longs either to the Finland-Lapland region where moraines still dominate the topography or to structural low zones across from the White sea to the Baltic and across south central Sweden. These low zones have been under the sea in comparatively recent geological periods and their great lakes include Ladoga (7,004 sq.m.), Onega (3,765 sq.m.), Peipus sq.m.), all in Russia and on its borders, and Vener (2,149 sq.m.), Vetter (733 sq.m.) and Malar (449 sq.m.) in Sweden. The largest of the Finnish system of lakes are Saima (68o sq.m.) and Pajane (6o8 sq.m.). The Swedish lowland-lakes, being between the Cattegat and the Baltic, have encouraged the development of water communications across Sweden, and the journey from Goteborg to Stockholm across Sweden by boat is scenically one of the most remarkable on inland waters.

The lakes of the Alps and their foreland are of various types; some like those of north Italy are largely due to morainic dams across valleys formerly heavily glaciated; others have this origin in part but may occupy structural troughs as well. The largest lake of Europe apart from the northern region above discussed is however Lake Balaton (266 sq.m.) elongated parallel to and beneath the slopes of the Bakony Wald. Finland is unique in Europe in the matter of its lake system but regions of indetermi nate drainage with abundant lakes and lakelets on a waterproof boulder clay cover occur in East Prussia, in Zealand (Denmark), in the Dombes region north-east of Lyons (France), and on a small scale in north Shropshire (England). The volcanic lakes of parts of the Apennines should be mentioned as also the tiny but characteristic corrie-lakes just beneath the ridges of the once heavily glaciated old mountain masses of Britain, with analogues in the Alps.

Marshes.—These are a feature of the geography of Europe especially on the Russian plain. From Leningrad eastwards to Vologda and the upper parts of the northern Dvina there stretch great areas of marsh more or less along the northern limit of the deciduous forest, and the marshes extend over large areas from Leningrad towards Moscow. The Peipus region on the Estonian-Latvian borders of Russia also abounds in marsh related to the distribution of boulder clay while farther south are the Pripet marshes. Here the Vistula-Dnieper low-zone north-east of the Carpathians crosses the European plain, and the Pripet marshes are the north-west part of the Dnieper basin towards the indefinite boundary between the drainage systems of the Black sea and the Baltic. These great areas of marsh have had great in fluence in isolating central Russia, especially from the west, and they determine to a large extent the historic ways of communica tion from the west into Russia, that of Vilna-Smolensk north of, and that of Lemberg-Kiev south of the Pripet marshes. The varied and broken topography of Europe farther west has prevented the occurrence of any marsh areas at all comparable with these but small patches occur in low alluvial basins and behind dunes on low shores and so on. The interior of Ireland is impoverished by large areas of bog land. There are great marshy areas in the European Arctic regions, in north Finland, the Kola peninsula and north Russia, nearly continuous eastwards beyond the northern Urals with the immense marshy lowland of the lower Ob.

Europe is situated in the north temperate, and to a slight extent towards the north, in the arctic zone between lat. 35° N. (Crete) and lat. 75° N. (Norway), with islands of the Arctic ocean beyond this limit. It faces the North Atlantic ocean on the west and may receive from it at any time cyclonic disturbances which typically move eastwards especially along the belt between lats. 5o° and 65° N. The prevalent wind is from the south-west and west-southwest, and the next most prevalent winds in west ern Europe are those blowing approximately from the south in the early phases of cyclones before those from the south-west set in ; and those blowing from the north-west in the late phases of cyclones. The prevalence of the west-southwest winds brings a drift of water on the ocean surface moving with a northward component towards the coast, the Atlantic water is thus always relatively warm for its latitude and especially so during winter. The air over relatively warm water tends to be moist and at low pressure and the cyclonic systems of the north temperate zone are essentially systems of winds blowing in a counter clockwise curve into a low pressure centre. The warmth of the North Atlantic is so marked in winter that the cyclonic systems are very strong and the winds blow with a great fury, but another result is that the warming effect is carried far northward along the coast and even harbours along the north coast, like Alexandrovsk, can thus be kept open in winter. This mildness in winter, and in summer (for the neighbourhood of the ocean keeps summer temperatures down, and the moisture in the air promotes cloudi ness), is of the utmost importance to man. He is able to maintain a good level of activity of body and mind and of intercommunica tion even in mid-winter provided that he is able to keep his stand ard of living high enough to ward off some of the ill-consequences of the small amount of sunshine. • The Russian plain in the matter of winter climate is, however, essentially an extension of the immense high-pressure system of north-central Asia and the cold dense air lying on it repulses sea winds and cyclones, and causes long periods of steady intensity of cold which contrast strikingly with the variability of the west, that so often has mild temperatures with south-westerlies followed by a bracing day with north-westerlies. The steady severity of climate on the Russian plain, with fierce winds especially in the north, is not only a famous subject of folk tale and literature but also a crucial difficulty in the way of any scheme of govern ment by consent, as it is difficult to maintain a good level of activity and vigilance under these conditions save among those fortunate enough to be able to create a more genial environment artificially. The social contrasts thus accentuated by climate have created bitter problems.

The Alpine system of mountains, instead of fronting the ocean as does the American Cordillera, is pointed westwards to the sea and the Russian zone of high pressure air in winter often spreads westward in a tongue along the highlands and may be continuous right across it to the highland of Spain, and may even thence reach the belt of oceanic high pressure which in winter lies over the mid-Atlantic about lat. 3o°. The presence of this south-west to north-east zone of high pressure marks out a path for the Atlantic cyclones to the north of its habitual border. The severity of con ditions gives six to eight months frost in a normal year on either side of the White sea, not diminishing below five months until one gets near a line from Leningrad to Moscow, and keeping above four months nearly as far south as Kiev, with the lower total of one to three months on the plain north of the Black sea. Approach to the sea westwards along the European plain is accom panied by reduction of the frost period from four months near the Baltic Dvina to three months near the lower Vistula, two months near Oder and one month along a line that approximately divides Danish Jutland (colder) from German Schleswig-Holstein (milder) and then runs southward from the neighbourhood of Kiel across the Weser to the Black Forest, i.e., just east of the Rhine. To the west of this the cold is not only less but also much less continuous.

In summer the European parts, and especially the centre and south, of the Russian plain warm up so that regions which were at F (average) in January, may be at 7o° or more (average) in July. The expansion of air on the plain in summer promotes indraught from the sea, and the weak summer cyclones and west erly winds thus penetrate far in, and make the European plain and central Russia a region of summer-maximum in the matter of rain. As a result a broad wedge, with base from Uleaborg in Finland to the Bukovina and apex between Nizhniy Novgorod and Kazan, has more than 20 in. of rain per annum while the land north, east and south of this wedge has less, often much less. The broken topography in west Europe implies not only increase of total rainfall as compared with Russia but also variation of rainfall from place to place within relatively short distances. The total generally exceeds 6o in. per annum on several coastal patches from north Portugal via Ireland to South Norway. The summer rainfall of the Russian plain has its maximum in June in the south before the heating of the land has gone too far, in July in the centre, and in August north of the Gulf of Finland. Analogous relations hold good in east central Europe where the Danube basin generally has a June maximum, the north German plain and the east side of the Rhine basin a July maximum and the Baltic region except Denmark an August maximum.

These facts bring out the great contrast over against Atlantic Europe with its typical October maximum of rainfall and its December to January maximum in such regions as west Ireland and Iceland. The Netherlands are sufficiently influenced by the European plain to have their rainfall maximum in summer and like the Baltic lands they usually have it in August. Statements concerning western Europe are however specially subject to reserve due to variability of seasons. Of recent years research upon the extent and date of melting of Arctic ice, especially in the north-west of the Atlantic area, has led to attempts to fore cast seasons in a broad way and it seems clear that the contrast between the colder air over an ice-sheet and the warmer air over open water in winter is an important factor of air movements helping to settle the tracks of cyclonic storms and thus exercising great influence upon our seasons. The North Atlantic wedge of relative winter warmth, pointing north-eastwards and forming the main zone of cyclones, may thus be said to be bounded on the north by the influence of Arctic ice and on the south-east by the tongue of high-pressure reaching out from the Russian plain along the highland zone, often to the Spanish plateau and the sub tropical high-pressure belt of the Atlantic. This wedge of rela tive warmth is in large measure the European region of agricul tural-village civilization already mentioned, and it seems reason able to say that the village in the apical part of that wedge has spread eastwards, i.e., that the idea of the village has on the whole spread eastwards into the summer-rain wedge, the area of de ciduous forest, in Russia, more probably via Kief than via Vilna (see above, Marshes). Nevertheless the wedge area has not had this type of penetration from base to apex; the agriculture of Europe owes a great debt to factors that have reached it via Asia Minor, south east Europe and the zone of European tongue of highland that is weak because of the basins of the Danube river that succeed one another in it ; it was not only in the days of Islam that this zone brought disturbing influences into Europe's life. Before leaving the wedge area it is well to draw attention to the fact that a strengthening of the continental winter high pressure conditions (such as would occur if the land lay higher) might well abolish this wedge which then, with its highlands and broken topography, would experience very severe conditions. The relation of these considerations to the glacial period is a matter that needs to be worked out still more critically.

The southern boundary of the wedge area is the tongue of winter high pressure that has been said to stretch, frequently, right out along the highlands from Russia to Spain and the Atlantic. That high pressure tongue generally separates off from the Atlantic influences the basin areas of the Mediterranean, though they may occasionally break through, either in South France with its deep tell-tale wedge of heavy rainfall having its base on the gulf of Gascony and its mistral wind blowing across the central plateau and down across Languedoc and the Rhone delta to the sea, or in the Adriatic farther east. In the Mediter ranean region the relations of sea and land affect climate all the more deeply because of the strength of the mountain framework around the deep basins of the sea. High pressure on the high lands and low pressure over the sea, which long preserves much of the summer warmth appropriate to such latitudes, is a govern ing factor from October to March ; and the cyclonic storms for which the Mediterranean is famous as well as winds down the mountains, e.g., the bora, mistral and others, are natural con sequences. In the western basin the contrasts develop most quickly in the north, giving a season of maximum rainfall in autumn as contrasted with a winter maximum along the coast of Algeria and Tunis. The configuration of south Italy facing the west Mediterranean basin gives it considerable rainfall in both autumn and early winter while the configuration of Sardinia gives it almost continental conditions in winter. Late-winter conditions with their diminution of differences of temperature between land and sea bring diminution of rainfall, and, then the seasonal in crease of warmth in the lowlands before the Alpine snows have melted brings increased rain to the Alps in April and leads to the spread over the Alps of the low pressure areas that still tend to linger on the Mediterranean sea. The warming of the Sahara and North Africa changes these relations as summer advances and the sea is now cooler than the land and so is a high-pressure area. The set of the winds becomes southwards towards the deserts of North Africa, and probably the pull exercised by trade winds farther south is also felt ; from June to September tempera tures run high and rainfall is very low, the bay enclosed by south Italy and north Sicily being a little less dry even at this season thanks to its mountain frame facing the sea. The isotherm of 7o° typically has the Mediterranean on its warmer side from early June to late September, and in July the averages in the western basin are as high as 75° to 78°. The general conditions just sketched need adjustment in detail for understanding of any particular region. Thus, the subtropical high pressure area over the Atlantic is markedly extended in summer and may spread into the Iberian peninsula but the mid-summer sun strongly heats the great plateau of that peninsula balanced about lat. 4o° N. and correspondingly reduces atmospheric pressure which thus tends to be lower than would otherwise be the case.

The Adriatic region illustrates some of the conditions of the western Mediterranean in accentuated fashion, with its massive Dalmatian highlands closely fronting the sea. The rainfall along this highland edge is said to be the heaviest in Europe, it has an autumn maximum but its more southerly portions go on getting heavy rain well into the winter and April increase of rain is marked here as in the Alps. July and August are relatively dry. Summer temperatures are like those of the western basin but winter temperatures run lower. In the eastern Mediterranean, the Aegean, enclosed as it is by land, and subject to influences from the south Russian steppe, feels the cold still more than the Adri atic, and parts of it are a rain-shadow area of the Illyrian moun tains. The early establishment of high-pressure conditions on the Russian plain in autumn (October) affects the Aegean region, which hence lacks heavy rainfall till contrasts between land and sea are thoroughly established in November, December and Jan uary. The summer is naturally very dry but the considerable early summer (June) rainfall of the Balkan land mass must not be overlooked. Summer conditions here include the southward set of the winds towards the heat of Africa and the Red sea, as already mentioned for the western Mediterranean, but here there seems to be a pull towards the great monsoonal air stream setting at this season on to India. The north or Etesian wind of the Aegean is famous in literature and history, rising with the day and calming towards night. Its regularity and the general pre dicability of the weather and the bright summer starlight were important factors, alongside of the multiplicity of sheltering is lands, in the rise of navigation and maritime commerce in this their earliest home in the Mediterranean region.

Southern Asia Minor, the majority of the Aegean islands, Greece, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia, south-east Spain and the North African coast have an average temperature above 68° F for four months and this period of heat is longer on the south east side of the sea, where summer rainlessness is still more marked. The difficulties of summer heat affecting the health and well being of the general population and its participation in mod ern efforts towards government by discussion and consent should not be overlooked, nor their bearing on the social structure of classical Greece, for example, ignored. The more moderate cli mate of Italy and its greater rainfall are important facts. The Po Basin needs a short note. Its enclosure with a mountain frame makes the middle of the valley cold in winter, sometimes with temperature inversion (i.e., the coldest air immediately above the surface of the land) and on the other hand the heat of summer in such a basin gives low pressure and a certain amount of rainfall. The special conditions in the Iberian penin sula with its spring rainfall in the northern half will be dealt with in the article on SPAIN.

The study of soils is advancing quickly at the present time (1928), largely under the leadership of Russian men of science, of whom Glinka is one of the best known (see K. D. Glinka, The Great Soil Groups of the World and their Development, 1928). E. Ramann is contributing to this study (Evolution and Classification of Soils, 1928) and is also applying the views developed to the study of geographical distribution. It appears now that the direct influence of the composition of the underlying rock or deposit is by no means a determinant, and that climatic influences play the larger part, though their influence will work out differently according as the rock or deposit is permeable or impermeable. Moreover the influence of the underlying material is far greater in a temperate climate than in a climate of extremes. As the newer classifications have been applied thus far in most detail in Russia the subject will be treated more particularly in the article RUSSIA, and this section of the article on Europe will be confined to an introductory statement.

Classification into transported soils such as loess, dunes, etc. (Aeolian formation), morainic, fluvioglacial, etc. (glacial forma tion), alluvial (fluvial formation), and sedentary soils has its utility but is applicable mainly locally rather than broadly over great regions and it is noted that the black earth appears over many different formations in eastern Europe, over loess, boulder clay, calcareous rock. etc. Temperature in its relation especially to rainfall and evaporation is one of the most important factors governing soil character. Surveying the soils of Europe broadly and using the new names as far as possible we have, according to Ramann the following classification : (I) In the cold zone there are humid soils, because evaporation is slight, chemical weathering is slow and the soil may be water logged in the open season and may thus be inclined to move or flow. Soils then are often tessellated by formation of great frost crack patterns, and fine sandy material leaches out into the cracks. Many areas of the Tundra or Arctic zones are covered by hil locks said to arise from differential strains in freezing of the upper layers when the depth also is frozen but zones in between are not. Hillocks are also due to the form of moss-cushions which grow in the Arctic. On the heights rock splinters abound in the soils, which usually have the iron leached out of them by water and so are grey. In many places the depths of the soil may be permanently frozen though the surface may grow trees or even occasionally crops.

(2) In the temperate zone the soils are affected by the pres ence or absence of lime in the rock for, if lime is present, there will not be accumulation of acids from humus. The rock natu rally affects the texture of the soil. In the north leaching by water which does not evaporate too quickly gives grey soils, generally poor in iron hydroxide but in sandy soils the iron hydroxide may not be got out of its combinations in the soil material and what little is got out is quickly carried away. Therefore grey soils are typical even fairly far south near sandy areas. Grey soils heavily leached are characteristic of north Scandinavia. Such soils in Russia are called Podsol and the humus here washes down into the subsoil and gives it higher iron-content, tending to form "a pan." Podsol is especially the soil of the northern coniferous forests of Europe but it occurs on mountains farther west. In the parts of Russia farther south, largely under deciduous forest, the bleaching is found again but the evaporation in summer is greater and "pan" is not generally formed ; these soils are the Forest Grey Earths. The Humid Brown Earths develop where rainfall, temperature and evaporation are moderate and leaching is not taken to extremes. In dry summers lime in solution rises in the soil, humus content is low because organic matter decays quickly with moisture and moderate warmth, iron is present in fair quantity from decomposition of the soil material, but that quantity is much less if the underlying rock is poor in iron. The brown earths are coherent and do not powder easily ; they need to be fed with organic matter if crops are to be grown year after year. They are the typical soils of the lowlands of central and western Europe and the surface does not differ much from the deeper layers, while the subsoil often contains fragments of the underlying rock. If the underlying rock be calcareous it dis solves away, and in extreme cases little soil is formed ; but some times, as in central Europe where the summer is warm and dry, humus accumulates in some quantity and one gets a dark earth (reef soil) as for example on the Swabian Jura. The calcareous soils being dry through soaking away of the water become warm and evaporation is great. Moreover the humus acids combine with the lime and this prevents much accumulation of the humus acids in colloid form. The percolating water makes the surface poor in iron but the deeper layers may have more of it.

With more extreme climate as towards the south of central Russia the typical soil is black earth, rich in humus because it is decomposed less quickly than under wetter conditions. The fac tors of its formation are stated by Ramann to be high tempera ture and much evaporation in summer with, therefore, an ascend ing current of water that brings up salts from the subsoil; lasting soil frost in winter is also important as hindering decomposition of humus. Tchornozyom occurs in patches in east Prussia and near Magdeburg, according to Ramann. Black earth grades northward in Russia into forest grey soil, and some of this is degraded black earth, being either due to increased leaching when forest was re moved, or due to increased leaching with the advent of a moister climate after the hard conditions of the Pleistocene age passed. Black earth grades into chestnut brown soils on the warmer and still more arid regions of south Russia where plant growth and humus formation is less, and lime, etc., are brought at least as far up as the deeper layers.

In south Europe with its warm dry summers and strong evapora tion the amount of hydroxides of iron, brought up by the upward current of water and formed by fairly rapid chemical action under the warm conditions, makes the soils reddish, while humus is quickly decomposed when there is moisture because the rainy season is not cold, and so the humus content is low. If, because of very strong evaporation, the soil contains soda and is alkaline it appears that colloidal humus compounds are maintained and leaching of iron compounds goes on, thus giving grey soils of a special character in steppe lands. These grey steppe-soils are characteristic of central Spain as well as of Turkestan, etc. They naturally grade into soils with a large content of salt, such as are found in south-east Europe and in some lands of the southern Mediterranean, and something of their type occurs in south and south-east Spain. The black earths are invaluable agriculturally because they need less organic food than the brown ones. The forest grey soils are distinctly poorer. The red earths need or ganic food if they are to grow crops with roots near the surface, but they rather lend themselves to the growth of deep-rooting plants which, again, are suited to the climate with its long dry season during which plant roots near the surface could not get enough water. The local sedentary red soils over the red sand stones of western Europe also give conditions highly suited to fruit trees and the like with deep roots. The local transported soil called loess, covered in large parts of Russia by black earth (Tchornozyom ), is highly porous with a good salt content from the upward current of water in it under dry conditions, and it often retains a fairly considerable humus content. Its looseness and porosity are not favourable to heavy growth of trees and it has been seized upon by man from early times for agricultural settle ments.

The vegetation of Europe is set in extensive zones which depend mainly on the zones of climate, partly in a direct fashion and partly through the influence of climate upon the soil (see above). Behind the influences of present conditions there are vestiges of the influences of former conditions of climate, dis cussed especially by C. E. P. Brooks in Evolution of Climate, and Gams and Nordhagen in Postglaziale Klimaanderun gen (Munchen, 1923) .

The region of Mediterranean climate is characterized by the presence of the olive, the cultivation of which spread from coasts or islands of the eastern part of the sea. The distribution is wider and reaches farther from the coast around the western basin than around the eastern. Among limiting factors on the north is the cold of winter in the highlands, even near the coast ; in the south east the heat becomes too great for the olive as it becomes suf ficient for the date palm. A noteworthy point is that northern Castile in Spain has very little if any olive, nor has the Garonne basin; but the Ebro basin and that of the lower Rhone below Pierrelatte have a great deal of it. Again the Po basin has very little olive save in certain districts beneath the Alps. It is very much of a coastal plant in the Balkan peninsula save to some extent in Greece. It occurs along the coasts of the south-east of the Black sea. It is important especially in the lowlands in Pales tine and Syria.

The zone of western, oceanic or sub-oceanic climate, the zone of the humid brown earths, is just as strikingly characterized, at the present time, by the beech-tree (Fagus sylvatica) . This lives in Castile and the Garonne basin, but, farther to the south-east, occurs only on mountains where the summer temperature, and consequently the evaporation, are not too great. The zone of beech has specially lent itself to agricultural improvement in recent centuries, with the development of root-crop feeding stuffs for beast and man (especially, now, the sugar-beet) and the spread of the potato which has done so much to increase the population of the European plain from Holland to Poland. The zone of oak without-beech is in the main a fringe of the beech-zone northwards. It includes the lake zone of south central Sweden and the south west corner of Finland, both regions which stand out as much more developed than those next farther north, for in this zone of Sweden is Stockholm and in this corner of Finland are Turlu (Abo) and Helsingfors. The ash reaches a little farther north than the oak. Eastwards the oak spreads far beyond the beech especially on the forest grey earths north of the black earth, in the wedge of summer rain that has its base on the Vistula-Dnies ter line and its apex at the line of the Urals. The beech stops about the line from Konigsberg to Kherson but it appears in the Cau casus. It is the Russian zone of oak-without-beech that is the essential "Great Russia" with its traditionalist agriculture ; it is separated from western Europe not only by the fact that it lacks the beech and the humid brown earth, but also by the sheer physi cal obstacle of the Pripet marshes, and the marshes stretching southward from the region of Lake Peipus.

North of the zones of beech and oak is the region of Pinus sylvestris, the region of cold soils in which root action is neces sarily slow, and of cold air in which evaporation is also slow. The pine forests are adapted to these conditions, the leaves are resin protected and tough, and do not let water evaporate faster than the slow-working roots can absorb it from the soil. Often enough an area of pine forest in the north is not worth reclaiming for agriculture but sometimes barley and rye can be grown and it is to be remembered that the removal of forest raises the summer temperature of the soil very distinctly. The pine and birch dwarf gradually towards the north where the deeper layers of the soil rarely unfreeze, and in this way the forest grades into tundra and the mossy-hillocks of the Arctic, the former with quick grow ing herbaceous plants flowering in the short summer season. Many minor points might be discussed such as the creep up the west coast of Europe of the holly (Ilex aquifolium) which has spread right into mid Germany, of the evergreen oak which reaches as far north as Brittany save for specially sheltered spots beyond. The invasion of the Alpine mountain system by Asiatic species of Cytisus since the end of the Ice age is an interesting matter and the Alpine system is also characterized in a high degree by the larch (Larix europaea).

The Mediterranean region has many plants with tough or hairy drought-resisting leaves which develop, not in one burst, as farther north, but slowly at all times, being thus free of de pendence on rain at a particular season. Olive, oleander, myrtle, laurel are characteristic and the woodlands include chiefly ever green oaks, Aleppo and other pines and silver poplars. On the mountain ranges the plants of the "beech zone" of Europe pene trate southward. Bush covers large areas and includes large grow ing heather, arbutus, myrtles, laurels, pistachio and many strong scented labiate plants; in dry spots, as in Spain, this bush forma tion, called Macchia in Italy, grades into pure heath. The French word Maquis connotes a heath land with shrubs in its general acceptance. The Mediterranean regions which cannot support these tree and brush growths may be covered by a mat of grass and bulbous plants, plants which can maintain life underground when the dry season makes their leaves wither; in dry parts of Spain the alfalfa grass is an important feature. The Mediterranean has been famed for its fruit from the dawn of history. The vine, furnishing rich wines in the west and chiefly currants and raisins farther east, is an important plant save in the south-east in Asia where Islam and the unsuitability of the climate for maturation of wines combine to limit production. The citrous fruits introduced long ago from the monsoon lands occur in the more sheltered and better watered tracts and their presence is often an indica tion of a favoured locality. In the irrigated gardens of East Spain (Valencia) oranges are grown on a large scale. Almonds, figs and pomegranates are other notable fruits. The date palm grows in a few specially warm spots.

The beech and oak-without-beech regions of Europe became forested, apparently, first with pines and then largely with oak and elm, ash and thorn when the steppe conditions of the Pleisto cene passed away, and the sinking of coasts in western Europe helped to bring in oceanic influences on climate. The beech may have lived near the Atlantic and Clement Reid speaks of beech leaves found in early post-Pleistocene deposits in England ; it spread, apparently, during the last millennium or two, B.C., and is much mixed with these other characteristic trees in many parts. The region is thus one which was heavily forested before man cut the trees. But some areas of thin soil on porous rocks and the areas of loess in the Danube basin, under Carpathians, Czecho slovakian mountains, Thuringian hills and Harz, and in the Neckar, Alsace and Rhein-Hessen lowlands were apparently not at all densely wooded. In Belgium, northern France and East Anglia soils related to loess and described by the French as limons de plateau were also apparently fairly free. These areas thus became important early centres of settlement and have remained impor tant agricultural areas ever since. The coastal dunes and marshes and the windswept coastal plateaux have also been free from forest since present conditions were established and among them heath plants, gorse (Ulex) and bracken (Pteris), the latter on the more rocky areas, are highly characteristic.

The steppe region of south Russia has trees for the most part only quite near rivers, and they are chiefly willows, alders and poplars. The period of growth after the passing of winter and before summer heat dries everything up is reduced to about three months (April 15 to July 15). Herbaceous quick growing plants and especially those with underground food stores are character istic, and often one finds very large numbers of a particular plant together, offering a contrast to the rich mixture of species in many of the plant associations farther west. The chief plant is the grass Stipa with specially tough stalks and narrow rolled leaves, but labiates and composites are also widespread. Towards the Caspian, and in analogous spots elsewhere, salt-loving plants are a feature. There are a good many thorn shrubs mainly of the order of the leguminosae. The northern region of pines also has birches and willows among its trees, with grasses, ranunculaceae, heather plants, cruciferae and saxifrages conspicuous among its herba ceous plants. Mosses, liverworts and lichens are a marked fea ture.

Fauna.

Animals in Europe and the Mediterranean region are, or were until men reduced their numbers, of many kinds related to those of lands farther south or farther east, and the name Palaearctic has often been given to the region including Europe and most of Asia north of the Himalaya, as a region with a dis tinctive fauna of forest and steppe. The fauna of Pleistocene Europe is a matter of archaeological interest but it is useful to interpret certain features of the life of a few regions, still fairly wild or only recently adapted by man, as remnants of an ancient fauna. It is, for example, claimed that the truly wild steppe-horse survived in the Vosges until the middle ages and the Saiga ante lope, a sheep-like animal lingers east of the Volga while the Urus has left some of his blood at least to wild cattle that were for merly widespread in forest glades and that still linger here and there. The Mouflon perhaps in part the ancestor of some breeds of sheep, survives in Corsica, Sardinia, Crete, Cyprus and the Taurus mountains. The brown bear, wolf, fox, otter and badger are the chief of the larger carnivores that survive in Europe but the wild cat still lingers. The deer of Europe are for the most part distinct from those of Asia and do not extend far into Russia. The chamois, a member of the antelope group, is peculiar to Europe and lingers in the high Alps and Caucasus, and the musk rat and related desman are confined to the French Pyrenean slopes and the Don and Volga banks respectively. Moles are highly char acteristic of the region and some genera are confined to it.

Boyd Dawkins and others following him have interpreted the present European fauna as the result of immigration both from the south across former landbridges, and especially a landbridge between Sicily and Tunis, and from the steppes of central Asia, and it is probable that both sets of migrants have contributed to the domestic animals of Europe. It has been suggested that the Soay sheep and the so-called Celtic pony are mainly southern in ancestry, while Asiatic races of sheep, cattle and horses have dis placed almost completely the southern ones, presumably earlier immigrants along the west. Doubtless the intermixture with local wild forms, especially of cattle and swine, has had much to do with the evolution of existing types of these animals as domesti cated in Europe and its borders. The spread of the rabbit from the Mediterranean as far north as Britain and Germany in the middle ages is a noteworthy feature of European animal life entirely due to man. The spread of the brown rat at the expense of the old European black rat is another feature of man's influence in recent centuries, this time an undesigned influence.

Settled life in Europe has for long been based primarily on the cultivation of cereals; and of these wheat and barley, at least in the forms in which they are cultivated, are believed to be intro ductions from south-west Asia and were spread in Europe in the third millennium B.C. largely by way of the Danube basin but pos sibly also by maritime communications along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts. Though wheat and barley are the older food plants, rye has become a crop of great importance especially north and east of the Rhine, the Austrian Alps and the Carpathians and in Russia north of a line running from lat. 44° N. in the west to lat. 55° N. in the Ural mountains. It is often said that a fundamental contrast in peasant life between France and Ger many is that between wheat and rye, though much wheat is grown in Germany. The proportion of wheat to rye in France is 81 to t, in Germany i to 21, in Hungary more than 2; to 1, in Poland i to 4. In both Austria and Czechoslovakia there is more rye than wheat. Rye is more tolerant of cold than is wheat, and is a food producing more bodily heat. Belgium on the wheat side of the Rhine produces more rye than wheat at present. Barley is a specially adaptable crop giving a good yield of straw in the south in some Mediterranean regions and yielding grain in some places too cold for useful wheat cultivation. Oats are cultivated in most European countries and are produced in greater quantity than wheat in the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. In most of these countries, however, except the British Isles, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, the amount of oats appears to be less than that of wheat and rye combined. It is thus a crop adapted to the cool moist north-west in which it gives a harvest earlier than does wheat, while in Poland the oats harvest is after that of wheat.

Archaeological studies have suggested that the earliest agricul tural scheme was one which still prevails in some parts of Africa, in a few backward regions of India and in north Korea, etc., where a group of villagers cultivates a patch of soil until it is exhausted and then moves on. This was apparently quite early superseded by the more settled village with some scheme of ro tation for use of the fields of the village. There is increasing prob ability that some areas especially on the loess have been con tinuously utilized in this manner for thousands of years. The fer tility of the soil has been renewed by fallowing and by manure from stock as well as by the ploughing-in of leguminous crops which enrich the soil in nitrates formed from the atmosphere by root nodules of plants of this order.

Within about the last three centuries schemes of cultivation have been much modified by the spread of root-crops (parsnips, turnips, mangold wurzels, forage beetroots), which grow on into the autumn in western Europe and provide winter food for farm animals. The spread of these crops is generally held to have had a powerful influence in modifying traditional agriculture, one feat ure of which was the pasturing of cattle on the stubble of the fields after cutting of the corn harvests in order to manure the land. The root crops left in the ground for some time after the corn harvests prevented the use of the land in this way. Root crops gave additional food for man and beast and by increasing the number of animals helped to make more flesh food available for man, and also gave more leather.

The spread of the potato has made great changes in European life, it has become a great food crop in Norway, north Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the lands of the south-east Baltic, in most of which countries the weight of the crop exceeds that of all the cereals combined. The potato has become important also in Russia where the weight of the crop is now nearly equal to the sum of the weights of the wheat and the rye crops. The potato is however tolerant enough to form a fairly important crop in France, Italy and Hungary as well. Its importance in Ireland is well known. It has clearly played a considerable part in promot ing increase of population in Ireland, and on parts of the European plain, notably in Prussia, where the soil is cold and impervious. The sugar-beet has further increased European food supplies and is important in Italy, north France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Rumania. The introduction of maize from America, to be cultivated for the most part after the fashion of European cereals rather than as it was originally grown in America, has been important especially for south and east France, Italy, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania, and parts of Russia.

The break up of traditionalist agriculture led to experiments in the direction of improvement of vegetables, and the growth of modern bulk-transport has further changed the situation by liberating countries from complete dependence on their own pro ducts, and by making available imported fertilizers such as chili saltpetre (nitrate of soda) and guano ; while the rise of chemical industries, added to that of bulk commerce in palm products from the equatorial zone, has increased the variety of fertilizers and of animal foods which produce fertilizers. The present crop-pro duction of a country may thus be far from a result of the soil and climatic features of the country concerned. In Britain the precariousness of wheat harvests in many parts has played a part along with other factors in the decline of the crops grown, while France with its more assured sunshine in summer has remained more substantially agricultural. Germany, industrialized later than Britain, has done more to maintain its agriculture, and in this effort the application of science to the making and using of manures, imported or manufactured, has been an important fac tor. All these modern changes in cultivation have tended to em phasize the independence of each farm and there has been a marked tendency among rural populations towards scattering of homesteads, towards the "single farm" rather than the "nucleated village" type of habitation or, in the French terminology, towards the habitat disperse as contrasted with the habitat concentre. Along with this however there have grown up schemes of co-opera tion among agriculturists which are well known in Denmark but are developed in various degrees in several other countries. Areas of specially high cultivation have developed in the last half cen tury, notably in Holland, around Paris, in North Brittany and the Channel Isles, in Provence, Lombardy, etc. Among other food crops may be mentioned buckwheat grown in France, especially in the west, and northward to Denmark, as well as in South Rus sia, lentils in France and the adjacent parts of Germany and millet in Russia. Sugar cane is cultivated to a small extent in Spain and Sicily and rice is largely grown in the basin of the Po.

The vine is a plant the stock of which can withstand a certain amount of cold while its roots need a fair supply of water and well drained soil, and sunshine is important for growth of the fruit. Its effective northern limit is lat. 471° on the Atlantic coast, 5o° —52° in Germany and much farther south in Russia. The fruit, and the wines made from it, differ greatly in different regions, being rich in sugar and giving heavy wines in south Spain and Portugal, for example. Towards the effective limit, i.e., in general north of the central plateau in France and north of the Jura in Switzerland, vineyards are for the most part highly specialized as it is now no longer worth while to make inferior wines on a large scale under the difficult conditions near the practical limit.

Thus Saumur, Champagne, Moselle, Hock, Tokay, are, in the main, "choice" wines, as are many of the Burgundian vintages. Formerly the vine was grown farther north and its importance for the Sacrament of Holy Communion promoted this ; it can ac tually grow and even on occasion ripen as far north as sheltered spots of southern aspect in south Norway, thanks in part to the long duration of summer sunlight.

The zone north-westward beyond that of the vine in France, and the red soils in England have the cider apple, and in England, Belgium, Germany and Austria hops are cultivated for beer. Far ther east the tendency is rather to distil spirit from grain or po tatoes. The combination of stock-raising with crop growing varies in different parts of Europe but is on the whole far more char acteristic of what may broadly be called north-west Europe than it is of Mediterranean lands or of Russia, i.e., it is developed especially in those countries where rain falls at most seasons and pastures are rich and root crops thrive. The plateau lands of the Iberian peninsula are, however, famous for their sheep, which are moved over long distances from pasture to pasture as the seasons change (transhumance) ; and Greece has many sheep, and Italy a considerable number of cattle. Intensive methods give interest ing results in certain cases.

Horses Cattle Swine (per square (per square (per square mile) mile) mile) Denmark . . . . • 31 176 225 Netherlands 29 164 120 Belgium . . . . . 21 i so 97 Only Hungary and Germany rival these figures as regards horses and they are far behind these countries in cattle and swine. Germany has 120 swine and is rapidly increasing their number, and 21 horses, but only 96 cattle per square mile. England and Wales are interesting in this respect with 19 horses and io7 cattle but only 38 swine; they have, however, 289 sheep as against 22 in Germany and So in France and only a very few in Denmark. Switzerland has a high average for cattle but stands relatively low in pigs and quite low in horses and sheep. The Irish Free State also stands high in the matter of cattle, but is far behind the countries listed above in pigs and horses; it has however a considerable number of donkeys which are also a feature in Italy and Spain and Portugal and Greece. The breeds of these animals vary from country to country, sheep for wool and sheep for mut ton, cattle for draught, for dairying or for beef, horses for riding or for draught and so on. The cattle for dairying and those for beef are chiefly those of the rich pastures favoured by Atlantic rains and among dairy breeds Frisians, Jerseys and Guernseys have wide renown. The buffalo is used in Rumania and southern Italy. The pig is important in the old kingdom of Serbia though the statistics for the whole of Yugoslavia do not give quite 30 per square mile. The goat is important in Greece, Italy and Spain and Portugal and also abounds in the hilly parts of Germany.

Reference has been made above to fruits and it is necessary only to summarize by mentioning the olive, grapes, figs, apricots, peaches, pomegranates, and citrons fruits of Mediterranean lands, the plums and cherries of France and central Europe, with a special mention of Yugoslavia here, as well as the specialized vineyards of central and north-eastern France, the Rhine and Hungary, the apples and pears of France and parts of Britain. The fibre-crops cultivated in Europe were formerly more wide spread than now that exotic fibres are imported and artificial ones made. Flax, however, remains important in Flanders and is still grown in northern Ireland, in north Italy and in Russia towards the north. Hemp is fairly widely grown in Russia and in parts of central Europe and France. (H. J. F.)The geological history of Europe is, to a large extent, a history of the formation and destruction of successive mountain chains. Four times a great mountain range has been raised across the area which now is Europe. Three times the mountain range has given way ; portions have sunk beneath the sea, and have been covered by more recent sediments, while other portions remained standing and now rise as isolated blocks above the later beds which surround them. The last of the mountain ranges still stands, and is known under the names of the Alps, the Carpathians, the Bal kans, the Caucasus, etc., but the work of destruction has already begun, and gaps have been formed by the collapse of parts of the chain. The Carpathians were once continuous with the Alps, and the Caucasus was probably connected with the Balkans across the site of the Black Sea. There was, however, a large area which was not involved in the folding that produced these ranges, except, per haps, the earliest. In the eastern part of Scandinavia and through out the greater part of Russia even the Cambrian beds are nearly horizontal and there has been no folding since archaean times. This resistant area constitutes the Baltic Shield and Russian Plat f orm of Suess. It extends eastwards to the Timan range and Ural Mountains, southwards to the folded belt of the Sandimir Wald and the Donetz, and north-westward to the mountain axis of Scandinavia.

The oldest mountain chain lay in the extreme north-west of Europe, and its relics are seen in the outer Hebrides, the Lofoten islands and the north of Norway. The rocks of this ancient chain have since been converted into gneiss, and they were folded and denuded before the deposition of the oldest known f ossilif erous sediments. The mountain system must therefore have been formed in pre-Cambrian times, and it has been called by Marcel Bertrand the Huronian chain. It is probable that a great land-mass lay towards the north-west ; but in the sea which certainly existed south-east of the chain, the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian beds were deposited. In Russia, as we have seen, and South Sweden these beds still lie flat and undisturbed ; but in Norway, Scotland, the Lake District, North Wales and the north of Ireland they were crushed between the north-western continent and the Baltic Shield. Not only were they intensely folded but they were also pushed forward over the old rocks upon each side. Thus was formed the Caledonian mountain system of Ed. Suess, in which the folds run from south-west to north-east. It was raised at the close of the Silurian period.

Then followed, in northern Europe, a continental period. By the elevation of the Caledonian chain the northern land-mass had grown southward and now extended as far as the Bristol Channel. Upon it the Old Red Sandstone was laid down in inland seas or lakes, while farther south contemporaneous deposits were formed in the open sea.

Carboniferous Period.

During the earlier part of the Car boniferous period the sea spread over the southern shores of the northern continent ; but later the area again became land and the coal measures of northern Europe were laid down. Towards the close of the Carboniferous period the third great mountain chain was formed. It lay to the south of the Caledonian chain, and its northern margin stretched from the south of Ireland through South Wales, the north of France and the south of Belgium, and was continued round the Harz and the ancient rocks of Bohemia, and possibly into the south of Russia. It is along this northern margin, where the folded beds have been thrust over the rocks which lay to the north, that the coalfields of Dover and of Belgium occur. The general direction of the folds is approximately from west to east ; but the chain consisted of two arcs, the western of which is called by Suess the Armorican chain and the eastern the Variscan. The two arcs together, which were undoubtedly formed at the same period, have been named by Bertrand the Hercynian chain. Everywhere the chief folding seems to have occurred be fore the deposition of the highest beds of the Upper Carboniferous, which lie unconformably upon the folded older beds. The Hercyn ian chain appears to have been of considerable breadth, at least in western Europe, for the Palaeozoic rocks of Spain and Portugal are thrown into folds which were formed at approximately the same period. In eastern Europe the evidence is less complete, be cause the Hercynian folds are buried beneath more recent deposits and have in some cases been masked by the superposition of a later series of folds.

The formation of this Carboniferous range was followed in northern Europe by a second continental period somewhat similar to that of the Old Red Sandstone, but the continent extended still farther to the south. The Permian and Triassic deposits of Eng- ' land and Germany were laid down in inland seas or upon the sur face of the land itself. But southern Europe was covered by the open sea, and here accordingly, the contemporaneous deposits were marine.

Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods.—These periods were free from any violent folding or mountain building, and the sea again spread over a large part of the northern continent. There were indeed several oscillations, but in general the greater part of south ern and central Europe lay beneath the waters of the ocean. Some of the fragments of the Hercynian chain still rose as islands above the waves, and at certain periods there seems to have been a more or less complete barrier between the waters which covered northern Europe and those which lay over the Mediterranean region. Thus, while the estuarine deposits of the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous were laid down in England and Germany, the purely marine Tithonian formation, with its peculiar fauna, was deposited in the south ; and while the Chalk was formed in northern Europe, the Hippurite limestone was laid down in the south.

Tertiary Period.—The Tertiary period saw fundamental changes in the geography of Europe. The formation of the great mountain ranges of the south, the Alpine system of Suess, perhaps began at an earlier date, but it was in the Eocene and Miocene periods that the chief part of the elevation took place. Arms of the sea extended up the valley of the Rhone and around the northern margin of the Alps, and also spread over the plains of Hungary and of southern Russia. Towards the middle of the Mio cene period some of these arms were completely cut off from the ocean and large deposits of salt were formed, as at Wieliczka. At a later period south-eastern Europe was covered by a series of extensive lagoons, and the waters of these lagoons gradually be came brackish, and then fresh, before the area was finally con verted into dry land. Great changes also took place in the Medi terranean region. The Black Sea, the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian Sea were all formed at various times during the Ter tiary period, and the depression of these areas seems to be closely connected with the elevation of the neighbouring mountain chains.

Exactly what was happening in northern Europe during these great changes in the south it is not easy to say. The basaltic flows of the north of Ireland, the western islands of Scotland, the Faeroe islands and Iceland are mere fragments of former extensive pla teaus. No sign of marine Tertiary deposits of earlier age than Pliocene has been found in this northern part of Europe, and on the other hand plant remains are abundant in the sands and clays interbedded with the basalts. It is probable, therefore, that in Eocene times a great land-mass lay to the north-west of Europe, over which the basalt lavas flowed, and that the formation of this part of the Atlantic and perhaps of the North Sea did not take place until the Miocene period.

At a later date the climate, for some reason which has not yet been fully explained, grew colder over the whole of Europe, and the northern part was covered by a great ice-sheet which extended nearly to the Thames in England and as far as 5o° N. in Russia, and which has left its marks over the whole of the northern part of the continent. With the final melting and disappearance of the ice-sheet, the topography of Europe assumed nearly its present form. Minor changes, such as the separation of Great Britain from the continent, may have occurred at a later date ; but since the Glacial period there have, apparently, been no fundamental modifications in the configuration of Europe.

The elevation of each of the great mountain systems already described was accompanied by extensive eruptions of volcanic rocks, and the sequence appears to have been similar in every case. The volcanoes of the Mediterranean are the last survivors of the great eruptions which accompanied the elevation of the Alpine mountain system.