THE GREAT EASTERN CONTINENT. 



these in magnitude, but transcendently the most important in 

 its social and political character, is EUROPE, which occupies the 

 northwest corner of the great continent, being separated from 

 Africa by the Mediterranean Sea, and from Asia by a low chain 

 of mountains called the Ural, a river of the same name, the 

 aspian Sea, a great sheet of inland water, into which this river 

 discharges itself, and the Black Sea. 



39. Its divisions. If the whole superficial extent of the 

 great continent be supposed to consist of eight equal parts, the 

 area of Europe will be one of these parts, that of Africa three, and 

 that of Asia, which covers the remainder, four. 



Africa is divided from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, and 

 from Asia by the oblong tract of water, directed N.N.W. and 

 S.S.E., called the lied Sea. This sea is connected with the 

 Indian Ocean, lying to the east of Africa, and the south of Asia, 

 by a narrow neck of water, called the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. 



40. The Mediterranean sea, which forms one of the most im- 

 portant features in the western part of the great continent, lies in 

 a direction nearly east and west, and communicates with the 

 Atlantic Ocean by a narrow neck of water, interposed between the 

 southern point of the Spanish peninsula, and the north-western 

 corner of Africa, called the Strait of Gibraltar, from the rock 

 of that name at the point of Spain. 



41. Relief. The relief of the surface of the great continent is 

 characterised by an elevated ridge, the general direction of which 

 is parallel to its longitudinal axis, and is consequently E.N.E. 

 and W.S.W. very nearly, but the summit of this ridge is much 

 nearer to the southern than to the northern coast of the continent, 

 so that it divides its area very unequally. The declivity, therefore, 

 which slopes to the southern coast, is much more rapid and 

 shorter than that which extends to the northern coast. 



42. Its northern belt. The northern division consists of a 

 great belt of flat surface, beginning with the plains of Holland 

 at the west, and terminating with the deserts of Siberia at the 

 cast, being only interrupted by the chain of Ural Mountains, 

 running north and south at the confines of Europe and Asia. 

 Except where human industry has redeemed it, and brought it 

 under cultivation near its western extremity, the characteristic 

 of this plain is that of marshiness and insalubrity. 



43. The southern belt. The more limited plain south of the 

 ridge- summit, already mentioned, commences at the west with the 

 great African desert of Sahara, and stretches with little inter- 

 ruption across Arabia, Persia, and Northern India, to the shores 

 of Kamtschatka. 



44. Prevailing mountain - chains. The various mountain- 



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