Chapter XV: From the Founding of the German Empire to the Close of the European (12)

Gothland, the southern division, contains a much higher proportion of cultivated land, and its wide plains are all under agriculture.

=Climate.=--The climate of Sweden is continental in the north, along the Norwegian frontier, and on the southern plateau. The lakes in the colder districts of the north are ice bound for some two hundred and twenty days in the year; in the south only for about ninety days. The rainfall is greatest on the coast of the Cattegat.

=Production and Industry.=--The principal articles of cultivation are the various cereals--oats, rye, barley, wheat--and potatoes. The forests are very extensive, covering one-half of the surface of the country, and consisting of pine, birch, fir; these are of great importance, supplying timber, pitch, and tar, and also the chief fuel.

The mineral products are extremely rich: iron of excellent quality, that known as the Dannemora iron, being converted into the finest steel; gold and silver in small proportions; copper, lead, nickel, zinc, cobalt, alum, sulphur, porphyry, and marble. There is a railroad opening up the rich iron ore districts of Lapland, and mineral trains run from Gellivare and Kiruna to Lulea on the Gulf of Bothnia and to Narvik on the Atlantic. Considerable mines of coal are worked in Scania.

The chief articles of export are timber, butter, iron, steel, wood pulp, paper, matches, stone, iron and zinc ores, etc.

=People.=--The Swedes are a Germanic people, tall and strong, but with more variety of characteristics than the Norwegians. The Swedish language, allied closely to Norse and Danish, appears in very many dialects. It has had, especially since the sixteenth century, an extensive literature.

Almost the whole population is Protestant, adhering to the Lutheran Church, members of which alone are permitted to hold public offices. Education is well advanced in both countries, public instruction being gratuitous and compulsory. Sweden has the Universities of Upsala, which dates from 1477, and of Lund, founded in 1668, besides the many scientific and educational institutions of Stockholm.

=Government.=--The constitution of Sweden dates from 1809, but in 1866, when the separate meetings of the four estates--nobles, clergy, burghers, and peasants--were done away, the legislative system was much modified. The executive power is vested in the king, acting under the advice of a Council of State; the legislative in the two Chambers of the Diet, both of which are elected by the people--the first for nine years from proprietors, the second for three years from a lower class. The administration of justice is entirely independent of the government.

=Cities.=--The capital, Stockholm, has a population (1913) of 382,085. In addition to the capital, there are fourteen towns with above 20,000 population, viz.: Göteborg, 178,030; Malmö, 95,821; Norrköping, 46,180; Gefle, 35,736; Helsingborg, 37,385; Örebro, 33,182.

Malmö, on the sound opposite Copenhagen, is the outlet of the corn granary of the southern plain; Norrköping, on an inlet of the Baltic, after Stockholm, is the busiest manufacturing town of Sweden, its mills being driven by the rapids of the Motala; Gefle lies north of Stockholm, and is second only to it as a seaport on the Baltic side of the country; and Karlskrona, on the south coast, is the naval arsenal and headquarters of the fleet of Sweden.

Within recent years a network of railways has been formed over southern Sweden and Norway, connecting the capital towns with the ports of Göteborg, Malmö, and many other points.

=Stockholm= (_l_ pronounced), stands on several islands and the adjacent mainland, between a bay of the Baltic and Lake Mälar, in a situation that is accounted one of the most picturesque in Europe.

Its nucleus is an island in mid-channel called “the Town”; on it stand the imposing royal palace; the chief church (St. Nicholas), in which the kings are crowned; the House of the Nobles; the town house; the ministries of the kingdom; and the principal wharf, a magnificent granite quay, fronting east.

Immediately west of the central island lies the Knights’ Island (_Riddarholm_); it is almost entirely occupied with public buildings as the old Houses of Parliament; the old Franciscan church, in which all the later sovereigns of Sweden have been buried; the royal archives, and the chief law-courts.

North of these two islands lie the handsomely built districts of Norrmalm, separated from them by a narrow channel, in which is an islet with the new Houses of Parliament. In Norrmalm are the National Museum with valuable prehistoric collections, coins, paintings, sculptures; the principal theaters; the Academy of Fine Arts; the barracks; the Hop Garden, with the Royal Library, two hundred and fifty thousand volumes and eight thousand manuscripts, and with the statue of Linnæus; the Academy of Sciences; the Museum of Northern Antiquities; the Observatory, etc.

Ship Island (_Skeppsholm_), immediately east of “the Town” island, is the headquarters of the Swedish navy, and is connected with a smaller island on the southeast, that is crowned with a citadel. Beyond these again, and farther to the east, lies the beautiful island of the Zoological Gardens. Immediately south of “the Town” island is the extensive district of Södermalm, the houses of which climb up the steep slopes that rise from the water’s edge. Handsome bridges connect the central islands with the northern and southern districts; quick little steamboats go to the beautiful islands in Lake Mälar on the west, and eastward toward the Baltic Sea, forty miles distant.

Sugar, tobacco, silks and ribbons, candles, linen, cotton, and leather are produced, and there are large iron foundries and machine shops. Though the water approaches are frozen up during winter, Stockholm exports iron and steel, oats and tar.

Stockholm was founded by Birger Jarl in 1255, and grew to be the capital only in modern times.

=History.=--Sweden was originally occupied by Lapps and Finns, but probably (1500 B. C.) Teutonic tribes drove them into the forests of the north, and at the dawn of history we find Svealand occupied by Swedes (Svea) and Gothland by the Goths.

Gothland was christianized and also conquered by the Danes in the ninth century, while Svealand remained fanatically heathen till the time of St. Eric (twelfth century), who conquered Finland, henceforth a Swedish possession. For a century Goths and Swedes had different kings, but gradually melted into one people toward the end of the thirteenth century.

Now arose bitter feuds between king, nobility, peasants, and universal turbulence prevailed; agriculture, industry, literature and culture progressed not at all or hardly existed. Even after the union of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark under one monarch (1397), Sweden was torn by conflicts which lasted down to the expulsion of Danish oppressors, and the restoration of Swedish autonomy by the national rising under Gustavus Vasa (1524), the ablest prince who had yet ruled the Swedes. Under him the reformation was heartily accepted. Gustavus Adolphus and the Swedes were its bulwark, not merely at home but in Germany in the Thirty Years’ war; and by the acquirement of Bremen, Verden, and Pomerania, Sweden became (1648) a member of the empire.

Upsala is best reached by boat from Stockholm. Here the celebrated university, founded 1477, by Jacob Ulfson, now magnificently housed, stands in the Drottninggatan. Library, the largest in Sweden, with three hundred thousand volumes, including the Codex Argenteus, or Gothic Gospel of Bishop Ulphilas (318-388), written in silver letters on purple vellum, also the Atlantica of Rudbeck, and the sacred book of the Druses, with the Edda Manuscript. An Observatory is attached to the University. The Botanical Garden has many rare plants and a bust of Linnæus (Linné), who was professor and physician here, living at Hammarby.]

Under Charles XII. and his successor, the enmity of Denmark, Poland, and Russia wrested her new conquests from Sweden, and gave Livonia, Esthonia, Ingermanland, and Karelia (which had long been Swedish) to Russia; thus reducing Sweden from the rank of a first-rate European power. After a bloody struggle Sweden had to cede Finland (1809) to Russia. Norway was united by a personal union (i. e., by the monarch) with Sweden in 1810; and in 1818 the French general Bernadotte was elected king (as Charles XIV.).

Norway’s demand for a larger measure of home rule led in 1905 to a complete separation.

=SWITZERLAND= (Ger. _Schweiz_; Fr. _Suisse_), is a confederation of twenty-two cantons, lying practically in the very center of Europe, between France, Germany, Austria, and Italy. No part of it is within one hundred miles of the sea. It is also a very small country (sixteen thousand square miles), not much larger than the half of Scotland. The greatest length from east to west is two hundred and sixteen miles, the width from north to south being one hundred and thirty-seven miles. The population in 1910 was 3,741,971.

=Surface.=--The southern boundary lies for the most part along the highest crests of the Alps, which descend by the Italian valleys to the plain of Lombardy; the summits of the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa rise on the boundary line, which is crossed by the Great St. Bernard, Simplon, and Splügen passes. North of this mass of heights the deep valleys of the Upper Rhone flowing west to the Lake of Geneva, and of the Upper Rhine flowing northeast to that of Constance, mark a deep trench all across the country. In the heart of the country rises the mass of the Bernese Alps or Oberland, the Alps of Uri and Glarus, with the summits of the Finsteraarhorn and Jungfrau. Still farther north the country descends gradually by less elevated mountains and hills to the undulating lowland of Switzerland (still one thousand five hundred feet above the sea), which extends in a curve from the Lake of Constance on the northeast along the Valley of the Aar, by the Lakes of Biel (Bienne) and Neuchâtel to that of Geneva. Beyond this the long parallel ranges of the Jura close in the country on the northwestern frontier.

More than half of the whole country is covered by rocks, glaciers, forest, and mountain pasture, and cannot be permanently inhabited.

=Rivers and Lakes.=--All the northern part of the country belongs to the basin of the Rhine flowing to the North Sea. That river, having purified its waters in its passage through the Boden-See or Lake of Constance (partly in Switzerland), is joined by the Aar, which rises near the Grimsel, and flows through the lakes of Brienz and Thun. To this basin also belong the lakes of Zürich and Zug, Luzerne, Neuchâtel, and Biel or Bienne. The southwestern district drains by the Rhône to the Mediterranean, through the Lake of Geneva or Leman, which is partly in Switzerland, partly in France.

The smaller part of the southern boundary that laps over the Italian valleys of the Alps includes the head of Lake Maggiore, in Switzerland, and the upper Ticino, which flows through it to the plain of Lombardy and the Adriatic. In the east the boundary embraces only one valley, which drains to the Danube, the Engadine, through which the Upper Inn flows northeastward.

From the elevation at which they rise, and their rapids, the rivers of Switzerland are of no value in navigation. The Rhine only begins to be freely navigable at Basel, where it leaves the country. The larger lakes, however, have little steamers plying from shore to shore; that of Geneva, forty-seven miles long, has a considerable traffic.

=Climate and Scenery.=--The climate naturally varies with the elevation above the sea level, from that of the perennial snows at an elevation of about nine thousand feet, downward through the pastoral alpine region and the tall pine forests, to the lower lands in which the chestnut flourishes, and where orchard fruits, the vine, mulberry, and wheat can be grown. There is a variation of about thirty-four and one-half degrees in the mean temperature--between fifty-four and one-half degrees Fahrenheit at Bellinzona, and twenty degrees on the Theodule Pass.

Switzerland has been called the playground of Europe, and is visited by large numbers of tourists from all parts of the world, attracted by its magnificent mountain and lake scenery.

The amount of money brought annually by tourists is estimated at twenty million dollars.

Altdorf, near the southern end of Lake Luzerne, and capital of the canton of of Uri, is in the mountain-walled valley, and is the reputed scene of Tell’s shooting the apple. The side is marked by a fountain. The colossal statue of Tell is near by. His birthplace, near Bürglen, is occupied by a frescoed chapel.]

Geneva and Lausanne, on the beautiful lake of Geneva, Interlaken (between the lakes of Thun and Brienz), Luzerne and the Rigi, Schaffhausen at the Rhine fall, Zermatt beneath Monte Rosa, Lugano in the heart of the Italian lake district, are notable tourist stations; St. Moritz in the Engadine, and Leuk (Louèche) in the Rhone Valley, Pfäffers in that of the Upper Rhine, are famous for their baths. Switzerland as a whole--with its mountains, lakes, glaciers, waterfalls, valleys and cities--has been described by an American poet as a “cluster of delights and grandeurs.”

=Production and Industry.=--The forests, which cover about a sixth of the surface, are of immense value to the country, where most of the houses are built of wood. The mountain pastures give the characteristic employments of the people of the Alps and Jura, as herdsmen and shepherds, tending their cattle and making cheese in the mountain châlets during summer.

Agriculture is followed chiefly in the valleys, where wheat, oats, maize, barley, flax, hemp, and tobacco are produced.

The textile industries are the most important, the chief centers being Zürich, Basel, Glarus, and St. Gall. The chief are silk, cotton, and linen fabrics, besides raw silk. Next comes the clock and watchmaking industry, established at Geneva in 1587, which spread to the cantons of Neuchâtel, Berne and Vaud.

Wood carving was introduced in the Oberland about 1820. Other manufactures are chemicals, chocolate, and condensed milk.

Salt, obtained on the banks of the Rhine, is the only valuable mineral of the country.

=People.=--Three-fourths of the population of Switzerland, occupying all the center and north of the country, are Germanic; the remaining fourth belongs to three branches of the Romanic family--the French in the west, the Italian in the south, and the Rhæto-Romanic in the southeast. A little more than half of the population is Protestant, the remainder, chiefly in the mountain region, Roman Catholic.

Education is widely diffused, especially in the Protestant districts of the northeast, where the law of compulsory education is rigidly enforced. There are universities at Basel, Berne, Zurich, Geneva, and Lausanne.

=Government.=--At the close of the political storms which raged in Europe from 1789 till 1815, the affairs of Switzerland were re-arranged by the Congress of Vienna, which provided for the perpetual neutrality and independence of Switzerland in its twenty-two cantons. Since 1848 the independent states or cantons of Switzerland have become a united confederacy (Bundes Staat), the supreme legislative and executive authority of which is vested in a parliament of two chambers, sitting at Berne--the Stände Rath or States Council, and the National Rath, the first composed of two members for each canton, the second of representatives of the people according to numbers. The cantons are still, however, in a great measure, independent democracies, each making its own laws and managing its local affairs.

_Referendum and Initiative._--These are two political institutions peculiar to Switzerland, the furthest developments of democracy yet attained.

The referendum, which has now spread throughout the whole Confederation, and by means of which all legislative acts passed in the Federal or Cantonal Assemblies may be referred to the people _en masse_, was fully developed in 1874, and it has been put in operation on an average once a year. The decisions have generally shown a conservative rather than a radical tendency on the part of the people.

_Initiative_ is the exercise of the right granted to voters to initiate proposals for the enactment of new laws or for the alteration or abolition of the old ones.

=Cities.=--The capital of the Swiss Confederation is Berne, population (1910) 85,650. In 1910 there were twelve communes with populations exceeding 20,000: Zürich, 190,733; Bâle, 132,280; Geneva, 123,160; Berne, 85,650; Lausanne, 63,296; St. Gall, 37,657; Chaux-de-Fonds, 37,626; and Luzerne, 39,152.

was built in 1421-1573, and restored in 1850, with a richly sculptured portal, some good stained glass of the fifteenth century, and a famous organ. From the Terrace in the rear of the Cathedral, the snowy peaks of the Bernese Alps are seen in a glorious panorama.]

=Berne=, since 1849 the capital of Switzerland, sixty-eight miles by rail southwest of Basel, is situated on a lofty sandstone promontory formed by the winding Aar, which surrounds it on three sides. It is one of the best and most regularly built towns in Europe, as it is the finest in Switzerland. The houses are massive structures of freestone, resting upon shop-lined arcades. Rills of water flow through the streets. The view of the Alpine peaks from the city is magnificent.

The principal public buildings are a Gothic cathedral, the magnificent Federal Council Hall, the mint, the hospital, and the university. Berne has an interesting museum, and a valuable public library of fifty thousand volumes.

It was founded in 1191, was made a free imperial city in 1218, under Frederick II.; and between 1288 and 1339 successfully resisted the attacks of Rudolf of Hapsburg, Albert, his son, and Louis of Bavaria. The “Disputation of Berne” between Catholics and Reformers in 1528 prepared the way for the acceptance of the reformed doctrine.

On account of the traditionary derivation of its name (Swabian _bern_, “a bear”), bears are maintained in a public bear-pit.

=History.=--The original inhabitants of Switzerland were the Celtic Helvetii, and the Rhætii of doubtful affinity. Both were conquered by Julius Cæsar and the generals of Augustus, and Romanized. Overrun by the Burgundians in the west, and their Germanic kinsmen the Alemannians in the east, Helvetia became subject to the Frankish kings and were christianized in the seventh century.

Most of the country was subsequently part of the Holy Roman Empire; and in 1273 a Swiss noble, Rudolf of Hapsburg in Aargau, became German emperor. Soon after his death (in 1291) the inhabitants of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden formed a league to defend their common interests, and in 1315 crushed an Austrian army at Morgarten. In 1332 Luzerne joined the alliance, and in 1353, Berne, Zürich, Glarus, and Zug. The Austrians were again routed in Sempach in 1386, and in 1388 at Näfels.

The Swiss next had a fierce but triumphant struggle with Charles the Bold of Burgundy, whom they routed at Grandson and Morat in 1476, and finally at Nancy (where Charles was slain) in 1477.

When the Reformation began there were thirteen cantons, and the cantons took opposite sides from the beginning, not without serious turmoil and bloodshed. The treaty of Westphalia in 1648 recognized Switzerland as an independent state. Some of the cantons were strictly aristocratic and some highly democratic, and there was much discontent long before the French Revolution, when, in 1798, between civil strife and French armies, the old republic (or rather alliance) came to an end.

The Helvetic Republic of nineteen cantons, under French auspices, endured till 1805; then a new republican constitution was adopted, the Federal Pact of twenty-two cantons. On Napoleon’s downfall, Valais, Neuchâtel, and Geneva, which had been incorporated with France, were restored, and Swiss neutrality and inviolability were recognized by the treaty of Vienna in 1815. Religious troubles led to a Catholic league in 1844, which was suppressed by the Federal forces in 1847. The present constitution was adopted in 1848, but revised in 1874. In 1891 a demand for popular initiative for measures was carried. In 1908 Switzerland entered into an international convention for compulsory arbitration at the court of the Hague.

famous for its Bear Chimes--figures which perform every time the clock strikes.]

=TURKEY, or Ottoman Empire=, comprises the wide but heterogeneous territories really or nominally subject to the Osmânlî Sultan, in Europe, Asia, and Africa. These territories, which once extended from the Danube to the cataracts of the Nile, and from the Euphrates to the borders of Morocco, have been greatly reduced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

_Asiatic Turkey_ is now the true center of gravity of the empire; it includes Anatolia (the great plateau of Asia Minor), the lowlands of Mesopotamia, the highlands of Kurdistan and Armenia, and the island of Samos. The total area of the empire has been estimated as follows:

=Area in Square Miles=
Turkey in Europe 12,000
Turkey in Asia:
Anatolia 193,800
Armenia and Kurdistan 72,600
Mesopotamia and Syria 244,460
Turkish Arabia 172,000
-------
Total 694,860

=Estimated Population=
Turkey in Europe 2,755,000
Turkey in Asia:
Anatolia 9,175,000
Armenia and Kurdistan 2,500,000
Mesopotamia and Syria 4,650,000
Turkish Arabia 1,100,000
----------
Total 20,150,000

Of the above totals only 700,000 square miles (with a population of 21,000,000) are directly under Turkish government.

_European Turkey_ consists of the provinces of Adrianople, Constantinople and Chatalja, and is separated from Asia by the Bosphorus at Constantinople and by the Dardanelles (Hellespont), the only political neighbor being Bulgaria, on the northwest.

The Bosphorus, the straight connecting the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea, is so-called after Io, who swam over it in the shape of a heifer. On the western shore is the city of Constantinople. The Bosphorus at this point is about five hundred and fifty yards wide.]

=Physical Features.=--Turkey in Europe is a mountainous country and the chief physical features as it is now limited is the strait of Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. The Bosphorus, which guards the approach to the Black Sea from the Sea of Marmora, is at the same time the focus of all maritime trade between the Mediterranean and Russia, etc., as well as of the overland routes from Europe into Asia Minor. It has fitly been likened to a tortuous river valley over whose wooded banks are scattered forts and towers, cities and villages, castles and parks. The southern gate of the Sea of Marmora is the Dardanelles, which gives an opening into the Ægean.

Turkey in Asia is still more mountainous. The two almost parallel ranges, Taurus and Anti-Taurus, which are the basis of its mountain system, cover almost the whole of the peninsula of Asia Minor or Anatolia with their ramifications and offshoots, forming the surface into elevated plateaus, deep valleys, and enclosed plains. From the Taurus chain the Lebanon range proceeds southwards parallel to the coast of Syria, and, diminishing in elevation in Palestine, terminates on the Red Sea coast at Sinai.

The Euphrates, Tigris, Orontes, and Kizil-Ermak are the chief rivers. (See Asia Minor.)

=Climate.=--The climate of Turkey in Asia is as varied as the physical features. The great plateau on the north has a distinctly continental climate, rigorous severe winters with intense scorching heat in summer; in the eastern part of the plateau region the mountains are covered with snow for two-thirds of the year, and some of the principal ranges are capped with perpetual snow; here the peasants build their dwellings underground to escape the severity of the seasons. Towards the west the winters are not quite so severe, but the variations of temperature are excessive.

=Products and Industry.=--The soil of European Turkey is for the most part very fertile, and the cultivated products include most of those usual in central and southern Europe--maize, rice, rye, barley, millet, besides tobacco madder, and cotton. The mineral products are iron in abundance, argentiferous lead ore, copper, sulphur, salt, alum, and a little gold; some deposits of coal have been found, but none are worked. Sheep-breeding is largely carried on.

In Asiatic Turkey the mineral wealth is great; coal and iron are found together in considerable quantities; rich mines of copper exist in the mountains on the south of the Black Sea, and in the Taurus near Diarbekir lead and silver are found at intervals along a line connecting Angora, Sivas, and Trebizond in the north, and the eastern Taurus in the south; green, black, and white marble, and the finest quality of granite, are to be had in many parts of the mountain section.

With a fertile arable soil and a suitable climate, nearly every agricultural product flourishes. Oats, barley, and wheat are produced in great abundance. Almost all kinds of garden produce and orchard fruits abound, grapes and oranges are to be had all round the Mediterranean coast, as well as the choicest tobacco, opium, valonia and madder.

The mulberry is everywhere cultivated for feeding the silkworms, and cotton is grown in most of the western valleys. Vast groves of boxwood and other valuable trees clothe the seaward slopes of the hills. Dates are produced for export in the Babylonian plain, where wheat is indigenous. Petroleum and bitumen springs are found in the Euphrates valley.

Angora is famous for its flocks of goats, which produce the mohair of commerce, and enormous quantities of wool come from the countless flocks of sheep tended by the wandering Bedouin and Kurd shepherds.

There are at present no manufactures worth mention. The sponge fisheries of the Mediterranean are a source of great wealth.

=Commerce.=--The exports include tobacco, cereals, fruits, silk, opium, mohair, cotton, coffee, skins, wool, oil-seeds, valonia, carpets, etc., and are largely derived from the Asiatic provinces. Recently large quantities of wine and of raisins for the manufacture of wine have been exported. Since the establishment of the Anatolian railway by German enterprise the export of cereals, chiefly malting barley, has largely increased.

=People.=--The population consists of a singular mixture of races. Turks, Greeks, Slavs, and Albanians are largely represented, besides Armenians, Kurds, Arabs, Tartars, Jews, Circassians, and Frank residents. (See Book of Races.)

The established religion is Islam or Mohammedanism, but most other creeds are recognized and tolerated. The Protestant religion was for the first time officially recognized in 1845.

Education in all departments has of late been notably improved and has largely contributed to the complete overthrow of the antiquated and despotic system of government.

=Government.=--Until 1908 the government of Turkey was a pure despotism. An amazing change was swiftly and peacefully carried through in the autumn of that year. In connection with the troubles in Macedonia between Christians and Moslems, Greeks and Bulgarians, a Turkish military revolt took place, which, under the guidance of the “Young-Turkish” party (mostly educated abroad), became a great national movement. The sultan, overawed, had to acquiesce; parliamentary government was planned and carried out; equality before the law proclaimed to all races and religions of the empire; and a large measure of local self-government promised not merely to Turks but to Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Armenians, Syrians, Kurds and Arabs.

The enormous difficulties of the crisis were complicated by Bulgaria proclaiming its independence, and Austria-Hungary annexing the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But government by a national assembly has taken root in Turkey.

The term “Sublime Porte,” sometimes given to the Turkish government, is derived from the name of the chief gate of Constantinople.

=Cities.=--Of the towns by far the most populous is the capital, Constantinople (1,200,000), while after it come Adrianople (83,000), which by reason of its central position in the Maritza valley, commands an extensive inland commerce, Midia, and Gallipoli, the chief port on the Dardanelles.

The principal towns of Asiatic Turkey are Smyrna, 260,000; Bagdad, 150,000; Damascus, 150,000; Aleppo, 125,000; Beyrout, 120,000; Scutari in Anatolia, 80,000, and Broussa, 80,000.

=Constantinople= was founded in 330 A. D. by Constantine the Great, from whom it derives its name, on a site partly occupied by the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium. The Turks call it Istambol or Stambol.

The city stands on a hilly promontory of triangular shape, having the Sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus on the south and east, and on the north the Golden Horn, an arm of the Bosphorus. It is thus surrounded by water on all sides but the west, where a strong wall shuts the city off, from the mainland. Like Rome, the city is built on seven hills, six of them being separated portions of one long ridge.

As in the case of all great cities, Constantinople has spread far beyond its original bounds, and may be said to include towns originally quite separate from itself.

Constantinople is excellently situated, more advantageously, perhaps, than any European city but Naples.

From the outside its appearance is most picturesque and imposing. At the taking of the city in the fifteenth century most of the churches were destroyed, and mosques were erected in the most prominent situations. Cupolas and minarets, with graceful curves and soaring spires, combine with lofty cypresses to give the city an air of unique grace, and to invest it with the mysterious glamour of the oriental world.

Within, however, the appearance is not so pleasing. The streets form a labyrinth of dirty, crooked, and ill-paved alleys, while most of the houses are low and are built of wood or rough stone. During the last half century the aspect of things has become much more European. The streets, under western influence, have been widened and improved, lighting at night is common, and a European style of building has been introduced, even for the sultan’s palace. Cabs and electric cars are to be seen in most parts, while the old camel service has entirely disappeared. The dress of the people has changed in the same direction. The streets are generally dull in appearance, almost all animation being concentrated in the bazaars.

Constantinople consists of two distinct parts, besides more distant suburbs--Constantinople proper or Stambol, and what may be termed Christian Constantinople because it is there that the Christian colonies chiefly congregate. The two are separated by the Golden Horn, a safe harbor, capable of accommodating twelve hundred vessels, and so deep that the largest ironclads of the Turkish navy find enough water for their draught quite close to the shore.

Stambol or Turkish Constantinople lies on the south side of the Golden Horn, and Christian Constantinople lies on the north side; the two are connected by bridges. Stambol is on the site of Byzantium, and the old walls run a circuit of fourteen miles from the grim but now ruined and disused castle of the Seven Towers--where many sultans met their deaths at the hands of their mutinous soldiery, and where foreign ambassadors were imprisoned upon declaration of war--to the Golden Horn, then along its south shore to Seraglio Point, and so back to the Seven Towers, close along the margin of the Propontis. Here are nearly all the monuments and antiquities worth seeing in Constantinople.

First, next the Seraglio, stands Agia Sophia, Saint Sophia, the church dedicated by Constantine to “Eternal Wisdom,” and rebuilt with added splendor by Theodosius and by Justinian, and now converted into a cathedral mosque. Outside it is not worth a second glance, but within, the airy grace of its stupendous dome, and the beauty of its marbles and mosaics fascinate and amaze the vision.

As the steamer runs up the Bosphorus, the white buildings and glittering minarets of Constantinople come into view; with the mosque of Santa Sophia, Galata Tower and Pera, the Sultan’s Palaces at Beshiktash, with Scutari Suburb on the right, and then, rounding Seraglio Point, it glides at half speed into the Golden Horn, or harbor of Constantinople. At this moment, if the weather be fine and clear, a striking panorama opens to the eye of the voyager. The Golden Horn divides the city into two sections; Stamboul to the left, and Galata and Pera to the right. It is a bay, or amphitheater, surrounded by hills which are covered with buildings, domes, minarets, and palaces, embosomed by cypress groves, with hundreds of vessels and caiques skimming in all directions.]

Next, but not less beautiful, is the Suleymaniya, the mosque which the Great Suleyman and his architect Sinan erected on the model of St. Sophia, but with Saracenic ornament and a loftier though not quite so expansive dome. Some of the monolithic columns are remarkable for their size and beauty, and the general effect is even more imposing than that of St. Sophia.

Scarcely less stately is the Mosque of Sultan Ahmed I. in the Hippodrome; distinguished without by its six minarets (instead of the usual four), and within by the four gigantic columns which support the dome. Here the official celebrations and formal processions take place at the great festivals.

The mosque of the conqueror, Mohammed II., is also notable, though it has been greatly altered in restoration.

There are altogether some eight hundred mosques in Constantinople, and numerous chapels; but very few of them present features of special interest, except sometimes in the beauty of their wall tiles, of the Rhodian style, for the manufacture of which the suburb of Eyyûb was famous.

The remains of the Greek churches are more interesting, and the Fanar, or Greek quarter of Stambol, recall the memories of many distinguished Fanariote statesmen; but among the relics of ancient Constantinople none is more striking than the Hippodrome or “Horse Manège”, originally a circus surrounded by marble seats, long since removed, but still showing remains of antiquity, such as the famous column of the Three Serpents which once stood at the Temple of Delphi, and supported a gold tripod made out of the spoils taken by the Greeks at the battle of Platæa, but was removed to his new capital by Constantine.

Christian Constantinople, on the north side of the Golden Horn, comprises Galata, Pera, and Tophâna. Galata is pre-eminently the merchant quarter, founded by a colony of Genoese merchants in 1216. The Tower of Galata, a Genoese erection, serves the same purpose as the Seraskier’s Tower on the opposite side in giving alarms of fires. A tunnelled railway drags passengers up the steep ascent to Pera.

Pera is the aristocratic quarter; here are all the embassies and consulates. The steep and badly paved Grande Rue is lined with fair if expensive shops, and has an opera house, many cafés and restaurants, besides most of the principal hotels. Turks preponderate at Tophâna, which is so named from its cannon foundry.

The magnificent palace of Dolmabagché is on the brink of the Bosphorus. Other suburbs are Kâsim Pasha, on the Golden Horn, the seat of the admiralty; Hasköi, and the picturesque village of Eyyûb.

Along the European shore of the Bosphorus are the summer resorts of Therapia and Biyukderé.

The Asiatic shore is also lined with settlements from Scutari to Candili. The new palace of Yildiz Köshki stands at the top of the hill of Beshiktâsh, beyond Pera.

The commerce of Constantinople is increasing rapidly, though most of it is in the hands of foreigners, especially of Greek and Armenian merchants. Exports are chiefly cereals, carpets, silk, wool, hides, and all kinds of refuse and waste materials such as horns, hoofs, skins, bones, old iron, etc. Several hundreds of tons of the sweetmeat known as “Turkish delight” are also sent yearly to countries of Europe and America.

The manufactures have all taken their rise during the last twenty years or so, and even now only that of cloth making has made much headway.

This palace, on the shore of the Bosphorus, was built and inhabited by Abdul-Medjid (1839-1861), is beautifully decorated in the interior and has a splendid throne room.]

=History.=--The Osmanlis or Ottoman Turks sprang from a small clan of the Oghuz, who assisted the Seljûk sultan of Iconium, early in the thirteenth century, to resist the Mongol avalanche.

In the fourteenth century, the Turks under Osmân or Othmân conquered the Seljûk kingdom, and became known as Osmânlis or Ottomans. By 1336 they pushed their way to the Hellespont; under Murâd I. (Amurath) they occupied Adrianople and Philippopolis, received homage from the kings of Servia and Bulgaria, and practically held all the Balkan peninsula except Constantinople, which, after much fighting, fell before Mohammed II. in 1453. In the same century they conquered Albania, Greece, and the Crimea; and in the sixteenth century Syria, Egypt, Tunis, Hungary, and South Russia, and had wars with the Russians, Persians, and Venetians.

Their star began to decline in the seventeenth century; in 1682 they were driven back from Vienna, and lost Hungary, Transylvania, and Podolia. In the eighteenth century the Russians were their most successful enemies, wresting from them the territories from the Dniester to the Caspian. Greece attained independence in 1828, though Egypt failed to throw off its allegiance. The Crimean war (1854-1857) was fought in aid of the Turks against the Russians.

The next great crisis was the Russian war of 1877-1878. The worst Armenian massacres were in 1895-1896. Turkey held her own against Greece in 1897.

Abdul Hamid was deposed and constitutional government nominally established in 1908. But unrest and intrigue still prevent settled conditions.

Until the disastrous war of 1912-1913 with the States of the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Greece, Servia, and Montenegro) the European dominions of Turkey extended westwards to the Adriatic and northwards to Bosnia-Herzegovina (Austria). Under the Treaty of London in 1913 the northwest portion of Turkey was a line drawn from Enos, in the Ægean, to Midia, in the Black Sea, thus excluding Adrianople, which had capitulated to the Bulgarians after a prolonged siege.

During the second Balkan war (Bulgaria against the other members of the Balkan States) Turkey took advantage of the military difficulties of Bulgaria and reoccupied Adrianople, thus recovering a considerable portion of the province of that name. In 1911-1912 Turkey lost the remaining portion of her African possessions through the occupation by Italy of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, which were ceded under the Treaty of Ouchy(1912).

Turkey joined forces with the Austro-Germans in November, 1914, and attacked Russia and invaded Egyptian territory. Far more important than any of the Turkish operations, however, was the attempt of England and France, in 1915, to force the passage of the Dardanelles, so as to take much needed supplies of arms and ammunition to Russia and in turn enable her to export the enormous stocks of wheat which had piled up at her Black Sea ports.

This Obelisk from Thebes, of rose colored granite, sixty feet high, was transported hither by Theodosius the Great, A. D. 390-395, and shows traces of bas-reliefs of that date, and Egyptian hieroglyphs thirty centuries old.]

A combined English and French fleet, therefore, attempted to force the passage of the Dardanelles, battering at the Turkish forts from February 21 to March 18, when they attempted to force the Narrows, but were repulsed, with the loss of the British battleships _Irresistible_ and _Ocean_, and the French battleships _Bouvet_ and _Gaulois_, in addition to serious injury to a number of other warships engaged.

in the Beshiktash suburb, some distance north of Galata. The present Sultan resides in the Palace of Yildiz.]

A joint land and sea expedition was subsequently sent to accomplish what the fleets had failed to achieve.

The most desperate fighting continued there from the beginning of May. The allies employed British and French regulars--the famous Foreign Legion of France, British colonials from Australia and New Zealand, and troops from Egypt, the Soudan and North Africa--but they failed to capture the summits of the hills that command the Narrows and the great Turkish forts.

The land forces had the constant support of British and French fleets, which engaged the defenses at close range.

On May 11 the British battleship _Goliath_ was sunk, and two weeks later a German submarine made its way through the straits of Gibraltar, succeeded in torpedoing the British battleship _Triumph_ and the _Majestic_ and _Agamemnon_.

On January 9, 1916, the British and French forces entirely withdrew from the Gallipoli Peninsula, and the attempt to force the Dardanelles was abandoned.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS.--The railways of Turkey have made great strides in recent years. Constantinople is now in direct communication with Salonica and Monastir by means of a coastal line, and with Sophia, Nisch, and Belgrade, by means of a line passing up the Maritza Valley, through Adrianople and Philipopolis, and thence over a pass between the Balkans and Rhodope Mountains. Salonica is further united with Uskub and Mitrevitza.

The postal and telegraphic services are a long way behind those of other European countries, and foreign nations still find it necessary to maintain their own post-offices in the large towns and ports.

BAGDAD RAILROAD.--The most important step in the industrial progress of Turkey in modern times is the concession for the construction of the Bagdad Railroad, which, when completed, will connect the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf.

By a provisional convention, preference was given to a German company in 1903. England had a particular interest in the proposed scheme, as the line suggested would provide a short route to India; accordingly, in 1903, the British government objected to the railway being placed under German control, and discussion followed with a view to putting the line under international control. By the agreement of 1903 it was decided the German group should control forty per cent of the capital, the French, through the Imperial Ottoman Bank, thirty per cent, the Austrian, Italian, Swiss, and Turkish twenty per cent, and the Anatolian Railway ten per cent. In 1904, one hundred and twenty-four miles of the line were completed, from Konieh, through Eregli, to Bugurlu. In 1908 sanction was given to extend the line eastwards from Bugurlu across the Taurus to Adana.

The total length of the line will be one thousand five hundred and fifty miles and will run through Aintab and Berejik to Mosul, thence along the right bank of the Tigris to Bagdad.

THE CONTINENT OF NORTH AMERICA

Since the beginning of the sixteenth century America has been the general name for the two continents and adjacent islands, forming the main body of land found in the western hemisphere.

=Position and Extent.=--North America forms the northern section of the “New World” discovered by Columbus. It is separated from Europe by a sea nine hundred and thirty miles broad, from Asia by Bering Strait sixty miles across, and extends from the Arctic Ocean nearly to the equator.

The main mass is triangular in shape, and its outline varied by large peninsulas, broad gulfs and numerous inlets. Development of coast-line, twenty-eight thousand one hundred and thirty miles. Length, four thousand five hundred miles; breadth, three thousand one hundred miles. The area of the continental mainland is estimated at seven million one hundred and forty-six thousand six hundred and forty-one square miles; the entire area, including Greenland, the Arctic Archipelago, the West Indies, Newfoundland, and other islands, at over nine million square miles.

=Islands.=--It is customary to regard Greenland as a part of America, while the adjacent island of Iceland, though partially in the western hemisphere, is usually associated with Europe. The other principal American islands in the Atlantic are Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Anticosti, Prince Edward Island, Long Island, the Bermudas, the Antilles or West Indies, Joannes, Staten Island and South Georgia.

In the Pacific are the Aleutian Islands, Kadiak, the Alexander and Queen Charlotte groups, Vancouver and other British-Columbian Islands, the Santa Barbara group, Bevilla-Gigedo, the Pearl Islands, and others in the Gulf of Panama, the Galápagos, Juan Fernandez and the associated islets, Chiloe and the Chonos Archipelago. In the Arctic Ocean there are many large but unimportant islands. (See Map of Comparative Size of Islands and Table of Areas.)

=Coast-line.=--The coast-line of North America on the west is almost everywhere high and rocky. To the south of Puget Sound good harbors are rare, but British Columbia and Alaska have great numbers of good seaports, the coast-line being, in many places, deeply cut with high-walled fjords, or “canals,” and elsewhere sheltered by ranges of high and well-wooded islands. The Atlantic coast, north of New York Bay, is generally rocky and well sheltered with islands, and has abundance of good natural harbors; but south of the parallel of New York the coast of the mainland is almost everywhere low and sandy. Many of the best ports are formed by river-mouths, and have sandbars across their entrances. Nowhere else in the world is there any such extent of low and sandy coast as on the Atlantic and Gulf seaboards of the United States.

=Surface.=--The western mountain-system of North America comprises a very great number of minor ranges, mostly having a north and south direction. The main chain (Sierra Madre) cannot be said to preserve an unmistakable identity throughout. The Coast Range, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascade Mountains are the most noted of the western parallel ranges; they all lie on the Pacific slope, and contain some of the highest of North American peaks. The elevated plateau called the Great Basin (chiefly in Utah and Nevada), contains the Great Salt Lake and several smaller bodies of strongly saline water, evidently the remains of a much larger lake which once sent its waters to the sea. The eastern or great Appalachian mountain-system has a general direction nearly parallel with the Atlantic coast-line.

North of the St. Lawrence River is seen the vast and complicated Laurentian mountain-system, which extends from the Atlantic westward to near Lake Superior.

The highest summits are Mt. McKinley, in the north; Mt. Harvard, in the Rocky mountains; Mt. Whitney, in the Sierra Nevadas; and Mt. Popocatepetl or Peak of Orizaba, in Mexico. (See Tables of Mountain Peaks.)

=Rivers and Lakes.=--In the Rocky Mountain region of Canada, the great rivers, Yukon, Fraser, Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Mackenzie, take their rise. Between these mountains and Hudson Bay, a girdle of vast lakes, or inland seas (Great Bear, Great Slave, Athabasca, Deer Lake, Winnipeg, and others), form a regular succession running from the Arctic Circle to Lake Superior, the first of a wonderful chain of great sea-like expansions of the Upper St. Lawrence (the others being Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario). North of the St. Lawrence system almost the whole country is thickly studded with lakes, which, with their connecting streams, form a network of important waterways traversable by canoes and boats.

The Atlantic slope of the United States is well supplied with water, and many of its streams afford extensive navigation. The Hudson is noted for its fine scenery; the Potomac is one of the noblest of American rivers; and important streams flowing to the Atlantic are the St. John, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Merrimac, the Connecticut, the Delaware, the Susquehanna, the James, and the St. John’s, nearly all navigable in their lower courses.

The chief rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico are the Appalachicola, the Mobile, the Pearl, the great Mississippi, the Sabine, the Trinity, the Brazos, the Colorado of Texas and the Rio Grande.

Of the many large Alaskan rivers the principal are the Yukon and the Kuskoquim. The Fraser is a swift and strong river; the great river Columbia is noted alike for its navigation, its salmon fisheries, and its enormous cataracts. The Rio Colorado, whose waters flow to the Gulf of California, traverses a desert plateau. Here nearly every watercourse runs in a deep-walled cañon, a narrow valley with precipitous sides, often of prodigious height.

In the plateau of Central America the largest lake is that of Nicaragua, nearly equal to Ontario in extent, and only one hundred and thirty-one feet above the level of the sea. (See further under the respective countries of North America.)

=Climate.=--Largely determined by the direction of the mountain ranges. Five climatic regions, viz., an arctic region, whose mean temperature is less than thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit; an Atlantic temperate region, extending as far as the Mississippi, with abundant rains and dense woods; an inland temperate region, dry, with steppes or prairies; a Pacific coast region, and a tropical region.

=Political Divisions.=--The political divisions of North America are:

(1) Danish America,[8] which includes Greenland and three small islands of the Virgin group in the West Indies.

[8] The Danish West Indies were transferred to the sovereignty of
the United States in 1917 at the purchase price of twenty-five
million dollars.

(2) British North America, in which division we may place the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, Labrador, the Bermudas, the numerous British West Indian islands, and British Honduras.

(3) The United States, including the detached territory of Alaska.

(4) Mexico.

(5) The Central American republics of Honduras, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, together with Panama--unless its southern part be regarded as belonging to the South American continent.

(6) The West Indian republics of Hayti and San Domingo.

(7) The Dutch West Indies.

(See the articles on the separate states and colonies.)

THE UNITED STATES

The republic of the United States is by far the most populous,
wealthy, and progressive country of all the New World.

=Location and Extent.=--It occupies the most valuable portion of the North American continent, the whole of it (with the exception of the territory of Alaska) lying within the temperate zone, between Canada on the north and Mexico on the south, and reaching across from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Its boundary toward the Canadian Dominion passes through the Haro, or northern channel of the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, south of Vancouver Island, and thence along the forty-ninth parallel of latitude to Lake Superior; then midway through the center of the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence, and down that river to the forty-fifth parallel, and an irregular boundary which separates New Brunswick from the States of New York and Maine, terminating at Passamaquoddy Bay.

In the south, the Mexican frontier runs from the Pacific coast, northward of the peninsula of California, to the Rio Grande del Norte, which it follows to the Gulf of Mexico.

From Atlantic to Pacific, the breadth of the United States is not less than twenty-five hundred miles; and from north to south the country extends nearly seventeen hundred miles.

=Surface.=--The surface of the United States from east to west may be divided as follows: (1) The Atlantic Plain, which extends from the coast to the Allegheny Mountains. (2) The Mississippi Valley and Great Central Plain, which extends from the Allegheny Mountains west to the Rocky Mountains. (3) The Western Highlands. (4) The Pacific slope, which extends from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

=Mountains and Plains.=--The chief mountain systems are the Appalachian region in the east and the Rocky Mountains in the west.

THE APPALACHIAN SYSTEM begins in the northern part of New England (in Maine without the appearance of regular ranges) and New York, and extends southwestward to Alabama and Georgia, being divided by the Hudson River valley and Lake Champlain, and that of the Mohawk River into three distinct sections.

A coast-plain extends from its eastern base to the Atlantic. It is narrow in Maine, where it terminates in a bold rocky coast indented by bays, and broken into projecting promontories and islands. South of Massachusetts the coast becomes lower and more sandy, and the plain grows gradually wider, with the exception of a narrow belt at New York, until in North Carolina it attains a width of two hundred miles.

In the southern part of New England it is characterized by hills, and below New York by a distinct coast region and a more elevated slope. This higher region, which is in Virginia and thence southward, is marked by a somewhat abrupt terrace, varies in altitude from a few hundred to more than a thousand feet, and is known as the Piedmont plateau. The lower coast region is seldom more than one hundred feet above the sea. It has a sandy soil, and in many places there are large swamps near the coast. Much of this swampy country is uninhabitable, but when reclaimed, as it has been in many parts of North and South Carolina, it makes valuable rice-land. Many acres of fertile agricultural land have also been secured in Florida by draining its swamps. The middle elevated region is diversified by hills and valleys, and has a productive soil. The dividing line between it and the low coast-plain marks the head of navigation of most of the streams, and also determines the sites of many important towns.

The surface of this region today is a series of parallel ranges divided by fertile valleys. The various ridges are named as follows: The Blue Ridge, which lies nearest the Atlantic; the Kittatinny Chain; the Allegheny Mountains, which lie in the western part of Virginia and the central part of Pennsylvania; the Cumberland Mountains, on the eastern boundary of Tennessee and Kentucky; the Catskill Mountains, in the State of New York, which are continued in the Sacondago Chain; the Green Mountains, in the State of Vermont; the Hudson River Highlands, and the hills of New Hampshire. There is no peak of marked elevation in the Appalachian region, the highest point being Mt. Washington, in New Hampshire, which reaches a height of nearly seven thousand feet.

GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN.--West of the Appalachian system and lying between it and the western highland is a great central valley, forming part of the continental depression which extends from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. It is almost an absolute plain, rising gradually from the Gulf toward the chain of Great Lakes in the north, and toward the mountains on the east and west. The only important departure from its uniform level character is an elevation of from five hundred to two thousand feet, running from southern Missouri through northwestern Arkansas into eastern Oklahoma, and known as the Ozark Mountains.

This great valley occupies about one-half the entire area of the United States, and the fertile prairies and bottom-lands of the eastern and central portions make it the most important agricultural basin of the globe. From an irregular line west of the Mississippi River the land rises in an almost imperceptible slope till it reaches the base of the western plateau.