We can see how fully Italy uses her land by comparing her with the United States. If the United States had as many people and as many animals to the square mile as does Italy, we should have the same number of swine that we now have, twice as many horses and mules, three times as many cattle, seven times as many sheep, and ten times as many people.
563. The Madeira, Canary, and Azores islands.—These are three groups of small islands in the Atlantic. They are the tops of mountains which long ago were pushed up out of the sea. They are located where the water-warmed winds make the winters warm and frostless and keep the summers from becoming very hot. These islands are even more densely peopled than Italy. The chief income is from bananas, oranges, tomatoes, and early vegetables, which are sent to the north European market in steamers that stop at the islands for coal on the way from South America, and South Africa to Europe.
564. The two plateaus.—In the Mediter ranean region are two large plateaus where the erevation makes winters so cold that the fruit, wine, and vegetable industries cannot exist. The interior of Spain is one of these plateaus. There the summer is very dry and hot; but at Madrid it is so cold in winter that people can skate, although oranges grow not far away on the coasts of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. This section has two great products: (1) wheat, and (2) great flocks of sheep that feed on scanty pastures. These sheep are chiefly of the merino breed. (Fig. 627.) The other plateau, much like that of Spain, lies in Africa, directly across the Mediter ranean, in a place where the people look very different indeed from the Spanish (Sec. 546). This plateau, enclosed between the northern and southern ranges of the Atlas Moun tains, is nearly one thousand miles long, and from one hundred to two hundred miles wide. It, too, is a land of pastures, parts of which may some day be rich in grain, if the region is used as fully as is Italy.
565. Minerals.—Minerals are an impor tant part in the foreign trade of some Mediterranean districts. The quicksilver mines of Almaden and the copper mines of Rio Tinto, in Spain, have been worked for centuries and are still rich. The town
which grew up around our own California quicksilver mines is called New Almaden. Southeastern Spain has many lead mines. On the Bay of Biscay, in northern Spain, is Bilbao, which ships much iron ore to Great Britain. For centuries Bilbao has been so famous for making excellent steel that the English of Shakespeare's time called the Spanish swords "bilboes." For a long time the people of Sicily shoveled most of the world's sulphur out of old volcanoes, in which this mineral is always formed. Of late the sulphur deposits of our Cotton Belt have surpassed those of Sicily.
(Sec. 49, Fig. 32.) large deposits of potash, still unworked, have recently been discovered in Spain.
566. Trade and manufacture.—In the midst of this region the Mediterranean waters furnish one of the great highways of world trade. Each year thousands of ships pass in through the rock-bound Strait of Gibraltar. Other ships pass in and out through the two gates on the east—the Dar danelles and the Bosporus, and the Suez Canal. To what do these gates give en trance? The Mediterranean Region is poor. It is not a land of opportunity. That is why so many of its people have emigrated to America. It is very poor in cotton, lumber, petroleum, and coal. It has but little water power, except in the Alps and in the Pyrenees. (Sec. 510.) What can a region like this sell when it has a dense popula tion? The scarcity of raw materials and of power shows why the exports of all these countries have been largely farm products, wine, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, all of which are products of the small orchard or gar den, and not of the large field.
Ships from America and the Black Sea bring cotton and petroleum, wheat and corn. The ships that come from northwestern Europe bringing coal, machinery, cotton cloth, and manufac tures stop on the way home at Smyrna for figs; at Piraeus for Greek currants; at Palermo and Naples for oranges and lemons; at Marseille and Algiers for wine; at Valencia for oranges, almonds, and onions; at Almeria and Malaga for grapes and raisins; at Cadiz, Lisbon, and Oporto for wine.