16 



AUSTEIA-HUNGARY. 



in the west ; the summers are hotter, the winters more severe. This difference, 

 however, is not due to the presence of the Alps, for it exists in the plains on 

 either side of them. Austrian meteorologists affirm that this excessive climate is 

 gradually extending towards the west. Eastern plants, capable of withstanding 

 these changes of temperature, are spreading westward, and this accounts for the 

 differences between the Alpine floras of Austria and Switzerland. These differ- 

 ences, however, would only strike a botanist, and the general aspect of forests or 



Fig. 7. — Isothermal Zones of Austria. 

 Scale 1 : 15,000,000. 



pastures is the same, whether we wander through Styria, the Oetzthal, or Switzer- 

 land.* 



The People. 



The population of the Austrian Alps is far from homogeneous by race and 

 language. The Germans are now in a majority, but they have absorbed ancient 

 populations who preceded them, and of whom traces have been discovered in the 

 Lake of Hallstatt and elsewhere. Pile dwellings, however, appear to have been 

 far fewer than in Switzerland. 



The Tyrolese more especially are a mixed race, for they have absorbed not 



