Chapter II: Part 2

The valleys which radiate in all directions from the great central masses of the Alps are admirably adapted for imparting to almost the whole of Europe a remarkable unity, whilst they offer, at the same time, an extreme variety of aspects and of physical conditions. The Po, the Rhone, the Rhine, and the Danube traverse countries having the most diverse climates, and yet they have their sources in the same mountain region, and the fertilising alluvium which they deposit in their valleys results from the disintegration of the same rocks. Minor valleys cut up the slopes of the Alps and of their dependent chains, and carry towards the sea the waters of the mountains and the triturated fragments of their rocks. Running waters are visible, wherever we cast our eyes. There are neither deserts, nor sterile plateaux, nor inland lakes and river basins such as we meet with in Africa and Asia. The rivers of Europe are not flooded as are those of certain portions of South America, which deluge half the country with water. On the contrary, in the scheme of her rivers Europe exhibits a certain degree of moderation which has favoured the work of the settler, and facilitated the rise of a local civilisation in each river basin. Moreover, although most rivers are sufficiently large to have retarded migration, they are not sufficiently so to have arrested it for any length of time. Even when roads and bridges did not exist, barbarian immigrants easily made their way from the shores of the Black Sea to those of the Atlantic.

But Europe, in addition to the advantages due to its framework of mountains and the disposition of its river basins, enjoys the still greater advantage of possessing an indented coast-line. It is mainly the contours of its coasts which impart to Europe its double character of unity and diversity, which distinguish it amongst continents. It is “one” because of its great central mass, and “diversified” because of its numerous peninsulas and dependent islands. It is an organism, if we may say so, resembling a huge body furnished with limbs. Strabo compared Europe to a dragon. The geographers of the period of the revival of letters compared it to a crowned virgin, Spain being the head, France the heart, and England and Italy the hands, holding the sceptre and the orb. Russia, at that time hardly known, is made to do duty for the ample folds of the robe.

The area of Europe is only half that of South America, and one-third of that of Africa, and yet the development of its coast-lines is superior to that of the two continents taken together. In proportion to its area the coasts of Europe have twice the extent of those of South America, Australia, and Africa; and although they are to a small extent inferior to those of North America, it must be borne in mind that the arctic coasts of the latter are ice-bound during the greater portion of the year. A glance at the subjoined diagrams will show that Europe, as compared with the two other continents washed by the Arctic Ocean, enjoys the immense advantage of possessing a coast-line almost wholly available for purposes of navigation, whilst a large portion of the coasts of Asia and America is altogether useless to man. And not only does the sea penetrate into the very heart of {14} temperate Europe, cutting it up into elongated peninsulas, but these peninsulas, too, are fringed with gulfs and miniature inland seas. The coasts of Greece, of Thessaly, and of Thrace are thus indented by bays and gulfs, penetrating far into the land; Italy and Spain likewise possess numerous bays and gulfs; and the peninsulas of Northern Europe, Jutland and Scandinavia, are cut up by the waters of the ocean into numerous secondary peninsulas.

Europe. Asia. Africa. N. America. S. America. Australia. Total area, square miles 4,005,100 17,308,400 11,542,400 9,376,850 6,803,570 3,450,130 Mainland area, square miles 3,758,300 15,966,000 11,293,930 7,973,700 6,731,470 2,934,500 Development of coast-line, 18,600 34,110 16,480 30,890 16,390 10,570 miles Accessible coasts 17,610 28,200 16,480 26,510 16,390 14,400 Ratio of the geometrical to 1 : 2·5 1 : 2·5 1 : 1·4 1 : 3·1 1 : 1·8 1 : 1·7 the actual contour

The shaded circles represent the various continents; the outer circle represents the actual extent of coast-line. The blank space between the two concentric circles represents graphically the difference between the smallest possible or geometrical contour of a country having the area of the respective continents, and the actual contour as exhibited in the existing coast-lines. Europe, being in reality only a peninsula of Asia, hardly admits of this comparison.]

The islands of Europe must be looked upon as dependencies of that continent, for most of them are separated from it only by shallow seas. Candia and the islands scattered broadcast over the Ægean Sea, the Archipelagos of the Ionian Sea, and of Dalmatia, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia, Elba, and the Baleares, are in reality but prolongations, or maritime out-stations, of neighbouring peninsulas. To the islands of Sealand and Fyen, at the entrance to the Baltic, Denmark owes {15} most of her commercial and political importance. Great Britain and Ireland, which actually formed a portion of the European continent in a past age, cannot be looked upon otherwise than as dependencies of it, although the isthmus which once joined them has been destroyed by the waters of the ocean. England has actually become the grand commercial emporium of Europe, and plays now the same part in the world’s commerce that Greece once played in that of the more restricted world of the Mediterranean.

It is a remarkable fact that each of the European peninsulas should have enjoyed in turn a period of commercial preponderance. Greece, the “most noble individuality of the world of the ancients,” came first, and when at the height of her power governed the Mediterranean, which at that time meant nearly the whole universe. During the Middle Ages Amalfi, Genoa, and Venice became the commercial agents between Europe and the Indies. The discovery of a passage round the Cape and of America diverted the world’s commerce to Cadiz, Seville, and Lisbon, on the Iberian peninsula. Subsequently the merchants of the small Dutch Republic seized a portion of the heritage of Spain and Portugal, and the wealth of the entire world was floated into the harbours of their sea-bound islands and peninsulas. In our own days Great Britain, thanks to its favourable geographical position, in the very centre of great continental masses, and the energy of its people, has become the great mart of the world. London, the most populous city of the world, is also the great centre of attraction for the treasures of mankind; but there can be no doubt that sooner or later it will be supplanted, in consequence of the opening of new commercial high-roads, and changes in the political preponderance of nations. Perhaps some city of the United States will take the place of London in a future age, and thus the American belief in the westward march of civilisation will be verified; or we may possibly return to the East, and convert Constantinople or Cairo into the world’s emporium and centre of intercourse.

But, whatever may happen in the future, the great changes which have taken place in the relative importance of the peninsulas and islands of Europe in the short span of twenty centuries, sufficiently prove that geographical features exercise a varying influence at different epochs. That which at one time was looked upon as a great natural advantage may become, in course of time, a serious disadvantage. Thus the numerous inlets and gulfs enclosed by mountain chains, which favoured the rise of the cities of Greece, and gave to Athens the dominion of the Mediterranean, now constitute as many obstacles to their connection with the existing system of European communications. That which in former times constituted the strength of the country has become its weakness. In primitive times, before man ventured upon the seas, these bays and gulfs formed insurmountable obstacles to the migration of nations; at a later date, when the art of navigation had been acquired, they became commercial high-roads, and were favourable to the development of civilisation; and at the present time they are again obstacles in the way of our road-builders and railway engineers. {16}

V.—CLIMATE.

The influence exercised by the relief of the land and the configuration of the coasts varies in different ages, but that of climate is permanent. In this respect Europe is the most favoured region of the earth, for during a cycle of unknown length it has enjoyed a climate at once the most temperate, the most equable, and the most healthy of all continents.

Owing to the inland seas which penetrate far into the land, the whole of Europe is exposed to the modifying influence of the ocean. With the exception of Central Russia, no part of Europe is more than 400 miles from the sea, and, as most of the mountains slope from the centre of the continent towards its circumference, the influence of the sea breezes is felt throughout. And thus continental Europe, in spite of its great extent, enjoys the advantages of an insular climate throughout, the winds passing over the ocean moderating the heat of summer and tempering the cold of winter.

The continuous north-easterly movement of the waters of the Atlantic likewise has a favourable effect upon the climate of Europe. After having been heated by a tropical sun in the Gulf of Mexico, the gulf-stream issues through the Strait of Florida, and, spreading over the Atlantic, takes its course towards the coasts of Europe. This enormous mass of warm water, equal in volume to twenty million rivers as large as the Rhone, brings the warmth of southern latitudes to the western and northern shores of Europe. Its influence is felt not only in the maritime countries of Western Europe, but to some extent as far as the Caspian and the Ural Mountains.

The currents of the air exercise as favourable an influence upon the climate of Europe as do those of the ocean. The south-westerly winds predominating on the coasts pass over the warm gulf-stream, and, on reaching Europe, they part with the heat stored up by them between the tropics. The north-westerly, northerly, and even north-easterly winds, which blow during a portion of the year, are less cold than might be expected, for they, too, have to cross the warm waters of the gulf-stream. And lastly, there is the Sahara, which elevates the temperature of a portion of Europe.

The increase in temperature due to the combined influence of winds and ocean currents amounts to 40° 50°, and even 60°, if we compare Europe with other parts of the world lying under the same latitudes. Nowhere else, not even on the western coast of North America, do the isothermals, or lines of equal annual temperature, ascend so high towards the arctic regions. The inhabitants of Europe, though they may live 900 to 1,200 miles farther away from the equator, enjoy as mild a climate as do those of America, and the decrease of temperature on going northward is far less rapid than in any other part of the globe. This uniformity of temperature constitutes one of the most characteristic features of Europe. The whole of it lies within the temperate region bounded by the isothermal lines of 32° F. and 68° F., whilst in America and Asia that privileged zone has only half this extent. {17}

Scale 1 : 60,000,000.

Erhard.]

This remarkable uniformity in the climate of Europe is exhibited not only in its temperature, but likewise in the distribution of its rains. The seas washing the shores of Europe supply all parts of it with the necessary amount of moisture. There is no rainless district, nor, with the exception of a portion of the maritime region of the Caspian and a small corner of Spain, any district where droughts occasionally entail the entire loss of the harvest. Rains fall not only regularly every year, but in most countries they occur in every season, the only exception being the countries of the Mediterranean, where autumn and winter are the real rainy seasons. Moreover, in spite of the great diversity in the physical features of Europe, the amount of rain is scarcely anywhere excessive, whether it descends as a fine drizzle, as in Ireland, or in heavy showers, as in Provence and on the southern slope of the Alps. The annual rainfall scarcely ever exceeds thirty-nine inches, except on the flanks of certain mountain ranges which arrest the passage of currents charged with moisture. This uniformity and moderation in the rainfall exercise a regulating influence upon the course of the rivers, for even the smallest amongst them, at all events those to the north of the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Balkan, flow throughout the year. They rise and fall generally within narrow limits, and inundations on a vast scale are as rare as is want of water for purposes of irrigation. In consequence of this regularity, Europe is able to derive a greater advantage from its waters than other continents where the amount of precipitation is more considerable. The Alps contribute much towards {18} maintaining a regular flow of the rivers; the excess of humidity which falls to their share is stored up in the shape of snow and ice, which descend slowly into the valleys, and melt during the heat of summer. This happens just at a time when the rivers gain least from rain, and lose most by evaporation, and some amongst them would dry up if the ice of the mountains did not come to the aid of the waters descending from the sky. It is thus that a sort of balance is established in the economy of European rivers.

The climate of Europe is thus characterized by uniformity as a whole, and by a compensatory action in its contrasts. Regularity and freedom from excess, such as are not known in other continents, mark its ocean currents, its winds, its temperature and rains, and the course of its rivers. These great advantages have benefited its inhabitants in the past, and will not cease to do so in the future. Though small in extent, Europe possesses by far the largest area of acclimation. Man may migrate from Russia to Spain, or from Ireland to Greece, without exposing himself to any great risk of life. The inhabitants of the Caucasus and the Ural Mountains were thus able to cross the plains and mountains of Europe, and to establish themselves on the shores of the Atlantic. Soil and climate are equally propitious to man, and enable him to preserve his physical and intellectual powers wherever he goes. A migratory people might found new homesteads in any part of Europe. Their companions of travel—the dog, the horse, and the ox—would not desert them on the road, and the seed-corn which they carry with them would yield a harvest wherever confided to the earth.

VI.—INHABITANTS.

A study of the soil and a patient observation of climatic phenomena enable us to appreciate the general influence exercised by the nature of the country upon the development of its inhabitants; but it is more difficult to assign to each race or nation its due share in the progress of European civilisation. No doubt, in their struggles for existence, different groups of naked and ignorant savages must have been acted upon differently, according to their numbers and physical strength, their inborn intelligence, their tastes and mental tendencies. But who were those primitive men who first turned to account the natural resources of the country in which they dwelt? We know not; for, if we go back for a few thousand years, every fact is shrouded in darkness. We know nothing even as regards the origin of the leading nations of Europe. Are we the “sons of the soil,” and the “shoots of oak-trees,” as told in the poetical language of ancient tradition, or are we to look upon the inhabitants of Asia as the ancestors to whom we are indebted for our languages, and for the rudiments of our arts and sciences? Or did those immigrants from a neighbouring continent settle down amongst an indigenous population? Not many years ago the Asiatic origin of European nations was accepted as an established fact, and the original seats of our forefathers were pointed out upon the map of Asia. But now most men of science are agreed to {19} seek our ancestors upon the very soil which we, their descendants, still occupy. Caverns, the shores of oceans and lakes, and the alluvial beds of our rivers have yielded the remains of human industry, and even human skeletons, which clearly prove that long before these supposed immigrations from Asia there existed in Europe tribes who had already made some progress in human industry. Even in the childhood of history there existed tribes who were looked upon as aborigines, and some of their descendants—as, for instance, the Basks—have nothing in common with the invaders from the neighbouring continent. Nor is it universally admitted that the Aryans—that is, the ancestors of the Pelasgians, the Greeks, the Latins, Celts, Germans, and Slavs—are of Asiatic origin. Similarity of language may justify our belief in the common origin of the Aryans of Europe, the Persians, and the Hindoos, but it does not prove that their ancestral home should be looked for somewhere near the sources of the Oxus. Many men of learning[3] look upon the Aryans as aborigines of Europe, but certainty on this point does not exist. No doubt, in prehistoric times, intermigrations between the two continents were frequent; but we hardly know what directions they took, and can speak with certainty only of those migrations of peoples which are related by history. We thus know that Europe sent forth to other continents Galatians, Macedonians, and Greeks, and more recently innumerable emigrants of all nationalities, and received in turn Huns, Avares, Turks, Mongols, Circassians, Jews, Armenians, Moors, Berbers, and members of many other nations.

Leaving out of consideration the smaller families of nations, as well as the members of races who have not attained a national existence, Europe may be described as consisting of three great ethnological divisions, the principal boundary between which is formed by the Alps, the Carpathians, and the Balkan.

The first of these great families of European nations, the members of which speak Greco-Latin languages, occupies the southern slopes of the Balkan and of the Alps, the Iberian peninsula, France, and a portion of Belgium, as well as a few detached territories within the limits of the ancient Roman empire, altogether surrounded by alien nations. Such are the plains of the Lower Danube and a portion of Transylvania, which are inhabited by the Rumanians, and a few secluded Alpine valleys inhabited by “Romans.” On the other hand, fragments of two ancient nations have maintained their ground in the midst of Latinised populations, viz. the Celtic inhabitants of Brittany, and the Basks of the Pyrenees. Generally speaking, however, all the inhabitants of South-western Europe, whether of Celtic, Iberian, or Ligurian race, speak languages derived from the Latin, and whatever differences existed originally between these various populations, this community of language has more or less obliterated them.

The Teutonic nations form the second great group. They occupy nearly the whole of Central Europe to the north of the Alps, and extend through Holland and Flanders to within a short distance of the Straits of Dover. Denmark and the great Scandinavian peninsula, as well as Iceland, belong to the same group, and {20} the bulk of the inhabitants of the British Islands are likewise generally included in it. The latter, however, should rather be described as a mixed race, for the aboriginal Celtic population of these islands, which now exists pure only in a few remote districts, has amalgamated with Anglo-Saxon and Danish invaders, and the language of the latter has become mixed with mediæval French, the resulting idiom being almost as much Latin as Saxon. The development of national characteristics has been favoured by the isolation in which the inhabitants of the British Islands found themselves, and they differ essentially from continental neighbours—the Scandinavians, Germans, and Celto-Latins—in language and customs.

The Slavs, or Slavonians, form the third group of European nations. They are less numerous than the Greco-Latins, but the territories they occupy are far more extensive, for they spread over nearly the whole of Russia, over Poland, a large portion of the Balkan peninsula, and about one-half of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. All the great plains to the east of the Carpathians are inhabited by Slavs, either pure or mixed with Tartars and Mongols. To the west and south of the mountains the race is split up into numerous small nations, and in the valley of the Danube these come into contact with Rumanians, as well as with Turks and Magyars, the two latter being of Asiatic origin, and these separate the Slavonians of the north from the Slavonians of the south. In the north, Finns, Livonians, and Lithuanians interpose between the Slavonians and the Germanic nations.[4]

Race and language, however, are not always identical. Members of one race frequently speak the language of another, and race and linguistic boundaries, therefore, differ frequently. As for the political boundaries, they scarcely ever follow those natural features which would have been selected had their settlement been intrusted to the spontaneous action of the different nations. They hardly ever coincide with the boundaries of races or of languages, except in the case of a few high mountain ranges or of arms of the sea. On many occasions the countries of Europe were arbitrarily split up in consequence of wars or diplomatic arrangements. A few peoples only, protected by the nature of their country as well as {21} by their valour, have maintained their independence since the age of great migrations, but many more have been swept away by successive invasions. Many others, again, have alternately seen their frontiers expand and contract more than once even during a generation.

The so-called “balance of European powers,” founded as it is upon the rights of war and ambitious rivalries between nations, is necessarily unstable. Nations eminently fit to lead a common political existence are torn asunder on the one side, whilst the most heterogeneous elements are thrown together on the other. In these political arrangements the nations themselves are never consulted, but their wishes and inclinations must nevertheless prevail in the end, and the artificial edifice raised by warriors and statesmen will come to the ground. A true “balance of power” will only be established when every nation of the continent shall have become the arbiter of its own destinies, when every pretended right of conquest shall have been surrendered, and neighbouring nations shall be at liberty to combine for the management of the affairs they have in common. Our arbitrary political divisions, therefore, possess but a transitory value. They cannot altogether be ignored; but in the following descriptions we shall, as far as possible, adhere to the great natural divisions as defined by mountains and valleys, and by the distribution of nations having the same origin and speaking the same language. But even these natural boundaries lose their importance in countries like Switzerland, inhabited by nations speaking different languages, but held together by the strongest of all ties—the common enjoyment of freedom.

From an historical point of view a description of Europe should commence with the maritime countries of the Mediterranean. It was Greece which gave birth to our European civilisation, and which at one time occupied the centre of the known world. Her poets first sang the praises of venturesome navigators, and her historians and philosophers collected and classified the information received with respect to foreign countries. In a subsequent age, Italy, in the very centre of the Mediterranean, took the place of Greece, and for fifteen centuries maintained herself therein: Genoa, Venice, and Florence succeeded Rome as the leaders of the civilised world. During that period the surrounding nations gravitated towards the Mediterranean and Italy; and it was only when the Italians themselves enlarged the terrestrial sphere by the discovery of a new world beyond the ocean that this preponderance passed away from them, to remain for a short time with the Iberian peninsula. Greece had been the mediator between Europe and the ancient civilisations of Asia and Africa; Spain and Portugal became the representatives of Europe in America and the extreme Orient; historical development in its progress had followed the axis of the Mediterranean from east to west.

It will be found natural, under these circumstances, when we describe the three Mediterranean peninsulas in the same volume, particularly as they are peopled almost exclusively by Greco-Latin nations. France, though likewise Latinised, nevertheless occupies a distinct position. It is a Mediterranean country only as respects Provence and Languedoc, the rest of its territory sloping towards the Atlantic. Its geographical position and history have made France the great {22} European thoroughfare upon which the nations of the Mediterranean and of the Atlantic meet to exchange their products and to fight their battles. Ideas are imported into France from all parts of Europe, and she is called upon to act the part of an interpreter between the nations of the North and of the South. Next to France we shall describe the Germanic countries of Europe, the British Islands, and Scandinavia; and lastly, the immense empire of Russia.

{23}

THE MEDITERRANEAN.

I.—HYDROLOGY.

Greece and its insular satellites prove sufficiently that the unstable floods of the Mediterranean have exercised a greater influence upon the march of history than did the solid land upon which man trod. Western civilisation would never have seen the light had not the waters of the Mediterranean washed the shores of Egypt, Phœnicia, Asia Minor, Hellas, Italy, Spain, and Carthage. The western nations would have remained in their primitive barbarism if it had not been for the Mediterranean, which joined Europe, Asia, and Africa; facilitated the intercourse between Aryans, Semites, and Berbers; and rendered more equable the climate of the surrounding countries, thus facilitating access to them. For ages it appeared almost as if mankind could prosper only in the neighbourhood of this central sea, for beyond its basin only decayed nations were to be met with, or tribes not yet awakened to mental activity. “Like frogs around a swamp, so have we settled down on the shores of this sea,” said Plato; and the sea he refers to is the Mediterranean. It is therefore deserving of description quite as much as the inhabited countries which surround it. Unfortunately many mysteries still remain hidden beneath its waves.[5]

From a Chart by M. Delesse.]

From an examination of the coasts, as well as from the traditions of the people inhabiting them, we learn that the Mediterranean has varied frequently in its contours and extent. The straits which connect its waters with those of the ocean have frequently changed their position. At a time when peninsulas like Greece, and even islands like Malta, formed part of continental masses—and that they did so in a comparatively recent geological epoch is proved by their fossil fauna—the waters of the Mediterranean covered large portions of Africa, of Southern Russia, and even of Asia. The researches of Spratt, Fuchs, and others have satisfactorily proved that towards the close of the miocene age a vast {24} fresh-water lake stretched from the banks of the Aral, across Russia, the plains of the Danube and the Archipelago, as far as Syracuse in Sicily. Then came the briny waters of the ocean. There was a time when the Black Sea and the Caspian connected the Archipelago with the Gulf of the Obi. At another epoch the gulfs of the Syrtes penetrated far inland, and a large portion of what is now the Libyan and Saharan desert was then covered with water. The Strait of Gibraltar, which was torn asunder by Hercules according to the traditions of the ancients, is in reality but of recent origin, and has taken the place of a more ancient strait which joined the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean: this strait has been restored by human hands, and is known now as the Suez Canal. The coast-lines of the Mediterranean are undergoing perpetual change, owing to the upheaval or subsidence of the countries surrounding it. The Nile, the Po, the Rhone, and other rivers incessantly enlarge the alluvial plains at their mouths, and still further encroach upon the sea. Actually the Mediterranean, with its subordinate seas from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Sea of Azof, covers an area about thirty times that of the British Islands. This area is small if we compare it with the immense development of the coasts and the wealth in peninsulas, which impart an aspect of life and independence to at least one-third of the ancient world. The Mediterranean, though it takes precedence of all the oceans, in consequence of the part it has played in history, nevertheless only covers an area one-seventieth that of the Pacific.[6] It is broken up, moreover, into several separate seas, some of them so small in extent that the navigator hardly ever loses sight of the land. In the {25} east we have the Black Sea, with its two dependencies, the Seas of Azof and of Marmara. The Ægean Sea, or Archipelago, with its numerous islands, extends between the deeply indented coasts of Greece, Asia Minor, and Crete. The Adriatic stretches towards the north-west, between the Balkan peninsula and Italy; and the Mediterranean proper is divided into two separate basins, which might appropriately be called the Phœnician and Carthaginian Seas, or the Greek and Roman Mediterraneans. Each of these basins is again subdivided, the one by Crete, the other by the two islands of Sardinia and Corsica. These various subdivisions of the Mediterranean differ in area, and still more in depth. The Sea of Azof almost deserves the name of “Swamp,” which was bestowed upon it by the ancients, for if a ship sinks in it the masts remain visible above the water. The Black Sea has a maximum depth of over 1,000 fathoms, but the narrow strait which joins it to the Sea of Marmara is shallower than many a European river. The cavity filled by the Sea of Marmara is far inferior to that of many an inland lake; and the Dardanelles, like the Bosphorus, are hardly wider than a river. In the Archipelago and the eastern basin of the Mediterranean proper the depth corresponds with the protuberance of the land. Abyssal depths and “pits” of 260 and even of 540 fathoms are to be found in close proximity to the scarped mountain islands of the Cyclades, whilst on the low coasts of Egypt the water deepens only gradually, until in the centre of the Levantine Sea it attains a depth of 1,750 fathoms. The maximum depth—2,170 fathoms—is attained between Crete and Malta. If the whole of the waters of the Mediterranean were to be collected into an aqueous sphere, the latter would have a diameter of 90 miles; if it fell down upon the earth, it would not even wholly cover a country like Switzerland.

The Ionian Sea is separated from the Adriatic by a submarine ridge rising in the Strait of Otranto, and bounded on the west by a shoal or submarine isthmus, already referred to by Strabo, which joins Sicily to Tunis. This isthmus forms the true geological boundary between the western and eastern basins of the Mediterranean, which are connected here by a narrow breach only, the depth of which hardly exceeds 100 fathoms. The western of these basins is the smaller and shallower of the two, but nevertheless it attains a depth of 1,100 fathoms in the Tyrrhenian, and of 1,360 fathoms and even 1,640 in the Balearic Sea, and is separated from the waters of the Atlantic by a submarine ridge lying outside the Strait of Gibraltar, and joining Europe to Africa.[7]

This subdivision of the Mediterranean into separate basins, divided from each other by shoals or submarine ridges, by islands and promontories, sufficiently explains the contrasts between the phenomena of the open ocean and those observed here. In the Mediterranean, it is well known, the tides are almost everywhere irregular and uncertain. To the east of the Narrows of Gibraltar, in the sea extending between Andalusia and Morocco, the tides are hardly felt at all, and {26} they are, moreover, interfered with to such an extent by currents that it is exceedingly difficult to determine their amplitude, or the establishment of the various ports. Nevertheless the rise and fall of the tidal wave are sufficiently marked to have attracted the attention of Greek and Italian navigators. On the coasts of Catalonia, France, Liguria, Naples, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt the oscillation is hardly perceptible, but on those of Eastern Sicily and of the Adriatic the tide sometimes rises three feet, and, if accompanied by storms, may even attain a height of ten feet in certain localities. The Straits of Messina and of Euripo (Eubœa) have their regular tides, and in the Gulf of Gabes the waters rise and fall with the same regularity as in the open ocean. In the Black Sea, however, no tidal movements whatever have been discovered hitherto. It is nevertheless probable that more careful observations will lead to the discovery of a feeble tide, for it is believed that this phenomenon exists even on Lake Michigan, which has only one-fifth the area of the Black Sea.

According to Robiquet, Randegger, and others. Scale 1 : 750,000.

Erhard.]

The Mediterranean differs not only from the open ocean with respect to the feebleness and irregularity of its tides, but it is likewise without a great stream-current keeping in constant circulation the whole body of its waters. The currents which have been observed in various divisions of the Mediterranean can be ascribed only to local causes. An Italian geographer of the last century, Montanari, has {27} advanced an hypothesis of a great circuit current which entered the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar, and, after having washed the shores of Africa as far as Egypt, returned to the west along those of Asia and Europe; but careful observers have vainly endeavoured to discover its existence. They have met only with local currents, produced by an indraught of the waters of the Atlantic, by winds, by the floods of rivers, or by an excess of evaporation. One of these currents sets along the coasts of Morocco and Algeria from west to east; another flows along the Italian coast of the Adriatic from north to south; and a third from the mouth of the Rhone in the direction of Cette and Port Vendres. In fact, the configuration of the sea-bottom, and particularly the shoal between Sicily and Tunis, precludes the existence of any but surface currents in the Mediterranean.

Amongst the local currents the existence of which has been most clearly established are those which convey the waters of the Sea of Azof into the Black Sea, and those of the latter into the Archipelago. The Don more than makes up for the loss by evaporation in the Sea of Azof, and its surplus waters find an exit through the Strait of Kerch into the Black Sea. Similarly the waters of the Dniester, the Dnieper, the Rion, and of the rivers of Asia Minor, and, above all, of the Danube, which by itself conveys a larger volume of water into the Black Sea than all the others combined, are discharged through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles into the Archipelago. On the other hand, the Archipelago returns to the Black Sea, by means of a submarine counter-current and of lateral surface currents, a certain quantity of salt water for the fresh water which it receives in excess. This exchange accounts for the salineness of the waters of the Black Sea. The volume of fresh water discharged into it by the Danube and other rivers is so large that in the course of a thousand years its waters would become perfectly fresh, if there did not exist these compensatory highly saline counter-currents.

Analogous phenomena take place at the other extremity of the Mediterranean. Evaporation there is excessive, owing to the neighbourhood of the burning sands of the deserts, the winds from which blow freely over the sea, absorbing the vapours and dispersing the clouds. The loss by evaporation amounts to at least seven feet in the course of a year, and as the annual rainfall is estimated to amount to twenty inches only, and the volume of water discharged annually by all the tributary rivers of the Mediterranean, if uniformly spread over its surface, would hardly exceed ten inches in depth, there exists thus an excess of evaporation amounting annually to more than four feet; and this excess has to be made good by an inflow of the waters of the Atlantic, which takes place through the Strait of Gibraltar, whose volume far exceeds that of the Amazon in a state of flood. This inflow of the waters of the Atlantic is felt, as a current, as far as the coasts of Sicily, and, like all other currents, it is bounded by lateral currents flowing in a direction contrary to that of the main current. During ebb the insetting Atlantic current takes up the whole of the strait, but when the tide rises the Mediterranean resists more successfully the pressure of the ocean, and this struggle gives birth to {28} two counter-currents, one of which skirts the coast of Europe, the other that of Africa between Ceuta and Cape Spartel; the latter is the larger and more powerful of the two. In addition to these, there exists a submarine current, which conveys the highly saline and heavier waters of the Mediterranean out into the Atlantic.

The quantity of salt held in solution in various parts of the Mediterranean differs widely, as the submarine ridges and shoals which divide it into separate basins do not permit its waters to mingle as freely as in the open ocean. Owing to the excess of evaporation, the quantity of salt is greater on the whole than in the Atlantic, and this is the case more particularly on the coast of Africa. But in the Black Sea it is far less, and near the mouths of some of the large rivers which enter that sea the water is almost fresh.[8]

The temperature of the Mediterranean is affected by the same causes which produce its varying salineness, viz. the existence of shoals and banks, which separate it into distinct sub-basins. In the open ocean the currents convey to all latitudes large bodies of water, some of them heated by a tropical sun, others cooled by contact with the ice of the polar regions. But these layers of unequal density are regularly superimposed one upon the other, owing to the differences in their temperature: the warm water remains on the surface, whilst the cold water descends to the bottom. In the Mediterranean an analogous superimposition exists only to a depth of 110 fathoms, which is the depth of the Atlantic current, flowing into it through the Strait of Gibraltar. If a thermometer be lowered to a greater depth it will indicate no further decrease of temperature, and the immense body of water, remaining almost still at the bottom of the Mediterranean, has an equable temperature of about 56° F. Observations made at depths varying between 110 and 1,640 fathoms have always exhibited the same result. Professor Carpenter believes, however, that the abyssal waters of some of the volcanic regions have a somewhat higher temperature, which may be due to the presence of lava in a state of fusion.

II.—ANIMAL LIFE. FISHERIES AND SALT PANS.

Another remarkable feature of the abyssal waters of the Mediterranean consists in their poverty of animal life. No doubt there is some life; the dredgings of the _Porcupine_ and the telegraph cables, which, on being brought to the surface, were found to be covered with shells and polypes, prove this. But, compared with those of the ocean, the depths of the Mediterranean are veritable deserts. Edward Forbes, who explored the waters of the Archipelago, arrived at the conclusion that their abyssal depths were entirely devoid of life, but he was wrong when he assumed an exceptional case like this to represent a universal law. Carpenter thinks that this absence of life in the depths of the Mediterranean is due to the great quantity of organic remains which is carried into it by the rivers. These remains absorb the oxygen of the water, and part with their carbonic acid, which is detrimental to {29} animal life. In numerous instances the water of the Mediterranean contains only one-fourth the normal quantity of the former gas, but fifty per cent. in excess of the latter. To the presence of these organic remains the Mediterranean is probably indebted for its beautiful azure colour, so different from the black waters of most oceans. This blue, then, which is justly celebrated by poets, would thus be caused by the impurity of the water. M. Delesse has shown that the bottom of nearly the whole of the Mediterranean is covered with ooze.

The regions of the Mediterranean immediately below the surface abound in animal life, particularly on the coasts of Sicily and Southern Italy; but nearly all species, whether fish, testacea, or others, are of Atlantic origin. The Mediterranean, in spite of its vast extent, as far as its fauna is concerned, is nothing but a gulf of the Lusitanian Ocean. Its longitudinal extension and the similarity of climate in its various portions have favoured the migration of animals through the Strait of Gibraltar as far as the coasts of Syria. At the same time, animal life is most varied near this point of entry, and the species met with in the western basin are generally of greater size than those which exist in the eastern. A very small proportion of non-Atlantic species recalls the fact that the Mediterranean formerly communicated with the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. But amongst a total of more than eight hundred molluscs there are only about thirty which have reached the seas of Greece and Sicily through the ancient straits separating Africa from Asia, instead of through the Strait of Gibraltar.[9] The diminution in the number of species in an easterly direction becomes most striking when we reach the narrow channel of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. The Black Sea, in fact, differs essentially from the Mediterranean proper as regards temperature. It is refrigerated by north-easterly winds sweeping over its surface, to the extent even of portions of it becoming now and then covered with a thin coating of ice, adhering to the coast. The Sea of Azof has frequently disappeared beneath a thick crust of ice, and even the whole of the Black Sea has been frozen over in winters of exceptional severity. The cold surface waters, together with those conveyed into the Black Sea by large rivers, descend to the bottom, and prove most detrimental to animal life. Echinodermata and zoophytes are not met with at all in the Black Sea; certain classes of molluscs, already rare in the Levantine Sea and the Archipelago, are likewise absent; and the total number of species of molluscs is only one-tenth of what it is in the Mediterranean. Fish are numerous as far as individuals go, but their species are few. In fact, the fauna of the Black Sea appears to resemble that of the Caspian, from which it is cut off, rather than that of the Greek seas, with which the Sea of Marmara connects it.

In addition to the species which have found a second home in the Mediterranean, there are some that must still be looked upon as visitors. Such are the sharks, which extend their incursions to the seas of Sicily, to the Adriatic, and even to the coasts of Egypt and Syria. Such, also, are the larger cetacea—whales, rorquals, and sperm whales—whose visits, however, are confined now to the Tyrrhenian {30} basin, and become less frequent from century to century. The tunny-fish of the Mediterranean are also visitors from the coasts of Lusitania. First-rate swimmers, they enter through the Strait of Gibraltar in spring, ascend the whole of the Mediterranean, make the tour of the Black Sea, and return in autumn to the Atlantic, after having accomplished a journey of some 5,600 miles. In the opinion of the fishermen the tunnies go upon their travels in three immense divisions or shoals, and it is the central shoal which visits the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and consists of the largest and strongest fish. Each of the three divisions appears to be composed of individuals about the same age. For mutual protection they swim in troops, for they are preyed upon by enemies innumerable. Dolphins and other fish of prey follow their track, but their great destroyer is man. In the summer the tunny fishery, or _tonnaro_, is carried on in numerous bays of Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, and of Provence. Enormous structures consisting of nets enclose these bays, and they are ingeniously arranged so as to close gradually around the captured fish, which, passing from net to net, find themselves at last in the “chamber of death,” where they are massacred. Millions of pounds of flesh are annually obtained from these floating “slaughter-houses,” yet the tunny appears year after year in multitudes, and on the same coasts. There may have been a slight decrease in the number, but their closely packed masses still invade the “Golden Horn” of Byzance and other bays, as they did when first they attracted the attention of Greek naturalists.

Scale 1 : 38,300,000.

Erhard.]

Next to the tunny fisheries those of the sardines and anchovies are most important. Sea-urchins and other products of the sea are eaten by the inhabitants of the coasts, particularly in Italy, but there is no part of the Mediterranean where animal life is so abundant and so prodigious in quantity as on the celebrated banks of Newfoundland, or on the coasts of Portugal or of the Canaries.

A large number of fishing-boats are engaged, not in the capture of fish, but in {31} the collection of articles of dress or of the toilet. The purple-shell fisheries on the coasts of Phœnicia, the Peloponnesus, and Greece are no longer carried on, but hundreds of boats are employed annually during the fine season in fishing for coral or sponges.

Coral is found most abundantly in the western portion of the Mediterranean, and the Italian fishermen do not confine themselves to their own shores—to Sicily, Naples, and Sardinia—but also visit the Strait of Bonifacio, the sea off St. Tropez, the vicinity of Cape Creus in Spain, and the waters of Barbary. Ordinary sponges are collected in the Gulf of Gabes, and at the other extremity of the Mediterranean, on the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor, and in the straits winding between the Cyclades and Sporades. Sponges are usually found at a depth of from 12 to 150 feet, and can be gathered by divers; whilst coral occurs at far greater depths, and has to be wrenched off with an iron instrument, which brings up its fragments, mixed with ooze, seaweeds, and the remains of marine animalculæ. This industry is still in a state of barbarism: those devoted to it are not as yet sufficiently acquainted with the sea and its inhabitants to enable them to carry on the sponge and coral fisheries in a rational manner. Yet this they must aim at: they must learn how to deprive Proteus, the ever-changing deity, of his dominion over the inhabitants of the deep.

Next to the fisheries, the preparation of sea salt constitutes one of the leading industries of the Mediterranean coast-lands. But this industry, too, is frequently carried on in a primitive way, and only in the course of the present century have scientific methods been introduced in connection with it. The Mediterranean is admirably suited for the production of salt, for its waters have a high temperature, they hold a very large quantity of salt in solution, the rise and fall of the tides are inconsiderable, and flat seashores alternate with steep coasts and promontories. The most productive salt marshes of the Mediterranean are probably those on the Lagoon, or Étang de Thau, near Cette, and on the littoral of Hyères; but considerable ones may also be met with on the coasts of Spain, in Italy, in Sardinia, Sicily, Istria, and even on the “limans” of Bessarabia, bordering upon the Black Sea. The annual production of salt is estimated at more than a million tons, and exceeds, therefore, the entire tonnage of the commercial marine of France.[10] But this quantity, large as it is, is infinitesimal if we compare it with the saline contents of the sea, and science will enable us one day to raise a far more abundant treasure from its sterile depths.[11]

III.—COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.

Whatever advantages may be yielded by fisheries and salt-works, they shrink into insignificance if we compare them with the great gain—material, intellectual, {32} and moral—which mankind has derived from the navigation of this inland sea. It has repeatedly been pointed out by historians that the disposition of the coasts, islands, and peninsulas of the Mediterranean of the Phœnicians and Greeks admirably favoured the first essays in maritime commerce. Many causes have contributed to make this sea the cradle of European commerce: the faint summits of distant lands visible even before the port has been quitted; numerous nooks along the coasts where a safe refuge may be found in case of storms; regular land and sea breezes; an equability of climate which makes the sailor feel at home wherever business takes him; and, moreover, a great variety of productions resulting from the diverse configuration of the Mediterranean coast-lands. And this commerce, does it not lead to a peaceful intercourse between peoples on neutral ground, and to mutual enlightenment, brought about by an interchange of ideas? Every coast-line which facilitates the intercourse between nations is, therefore, of immense value as a means of developing civilisation.

Civilisation for many centuries marched from the south-east towards the north-west, and Phœnicia, Greece, Italy, and France have successively become great centres of human intelligence. This historical phenomenon is due to the configuration of the sea, which has been the vehicle of migratory nations. In fact, the axis of civilisation, if this expression be allowed, has become confounded with that axis of the Mediterranean which extends from the coast of Syria to the Gulf of Lions, on the coast of France. But the Mediterranean has ceased to be the only centre of gravitation of Europe, which sends its merchantmen now to the two Americas and the farthest East; and civilisation no longer marches in that general line from east to west, but rather radiates in all directions. Civilising streams depart from England and Germany towards Northern America, and from the Latinised countries of Europe towards Southern America. Their direction is still westerly, but they have been deflected towards the south, to meet the conditions imposed by climate and the geographical configuration of land and sea.

It is interesting to trace the changes which have occurred in the historical importance of the Mediterranean. As long as that sea remained the great highway between nations, the commercial republics were content to extend this highway towards the east, by establishing caravan routes to the Gulf of Persia, to India, and to China. In the Middle Ages Genoese factories dotted the coasts of the Black Sea, and extended thence through Trans-Caucasia as far as the Caspian. European travellers, and particularly Italians, at that time crossed Western Asia in all directions; and many a route hardly known in our days was then frequented almost daily. But for several centuries direct commercial intercourse with Central Asia has dwindled down to small proportions.

The Mediterranean had ceased to be a great ocean highway. Our navigators, no longer dreading a boundless sea, took their ships into every part of the ocean. The difficult and perilous land routes were abandoned, the once busy markets of Central Asia became solitudes, and the Mediterranean itself a veritable blind alley, as far as the world’s commerce was concerned. This condition of affairs lasted for many years, but since the middle of this century our relations with the East have {33} been renewed, and the lost ground is rapidly being recovered. Within the last year a great commercial revolution has been effected through the opening of one of the ancient gates of the Mediterranean, and the Suez Canal has become the great highway of steamers between Western Europe, the Indies, and Australia. Possibly, at no distant future, a similar canal will enable our merchantmen to proceed from the Black Sea to the Caspian, and perhaps even to the Amu and the Syr, in the very heart of the ancient continent.