THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 



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of the country. It is this leg of the peninsula which alone was 

 called Italy by the ancient geographers ; or, to be more precise, 

 merely the portion south of Rome. Only by slow degrees was the 

 term extended to cover the basin of the Po. The present political 

 unity of all Italy, real though it be, is of course only a recent 



ELEVATION 



A50VE SEA LEVEL 



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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 

 r ITALY, 



and, in a sense, an artificial product. It should not obscure our 

 vision as to the ethnic realities of the case. 



The topography and location of these two halves of the king- 

 dom of Italy which we have outlined have been of profound sig- 

 nificance for their human history. In the main distinct politic- 

 ally, the ethnic fate of their several populations has been widely 

 different. In the Po Valley, the " cockpit of Europe/' as Freeman 

 termed it, every influence has been directed toward intermixture. 

 Inviting in the extreme, especially as compared with the trans- 

 alpine countries, it has been incessantly invaded from three 

 points of the compass. The peninsula, on the other hand, has 



