THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



445 



of Africa and South America is included 

 in the Torrid Zone. The vast broken 

 plateau of continental Asia is girdled 

 west, south, and east by hills or moun- 

 tains which shut out the influence of the 

 sea. 



The climate of western Europe is de- 

 termined by the Gulf Stream, the mighti- 

 est, most rapid and most beneficent of 

 ocean currents. Its heated mass, de- 

 flected eastward by the Banks of New- 

 foundland, reaches the shores of Europe, 

 creating on its way the exhaustless fish - 

 eries of the North Sea. Its warmth 

 breaks the force of the winter and keeps 

 the harbors ice-free in the Norwegian 

 fiords. It gives to Liverpool a milder 

 climate than that of Washington, a thou- 

 sand miles farther south, and in the 

 British Islands, due east of Labrador, 

 causes grass to grow throughout the 

 year.* 



As no formidable barrier to breezes 

 from the sea is interposed, the prevailing 

 winds of Europe, loaded with ocean 

 moisture, spread hundreds of miles in- 

 land, relieving the excesses of the sea- 

 sons and fertilizing the soil. 



Europe's vast coast-line 



The coast-line of Europe is remark- 

 able for its length and its availability. 

 South America is twice and Africa three 

 times as large, and yet, although Europe 

 is landlocked on its eastern or Asiatic 

 side, it has a longer coast-line than that 

 of those two continents combined. North 

 America has double the area of Europe. 

 But, except for what stretches along the 

 inhospitable Arctic, the sea front of the 

 two is nearly the same. 



Europe is intersected by numerous 

 vast, narrow, half-inland gulfs and seas 

 which endlessly break its contour and 

 multiply its length. 



No other body of water rivals the in- 

 comparable sea which forms the southern 

 boundary of Europe, the Mediterranean. 

 Its general direction is east and west for 

 nearly 2,200 miles, and it is wholly in- 

 cluded in the southern, more genial, part 



* See also, in the National Geographic 

 Magazine, "The Gulf Stream," by Rear Ad- 

 miral John E. Pillsbury (August, 1912). 



of the Temperate Zone. Bathing the 

 shores of all the continents of the old 

 world, its area of 900,000 square miles 

 makes it seem like an inland ocean. Two 

 great peninsulas cut half way across, one 

 of them more than seven hundred miles 

 in length. 



A succession of great islands at almost 

 equal distances follow one another along 

 a line rudely parallel to its general direc- 

 tion. Innumerable other islands dot its 

 main expanse and fringe its shores. 

 Hence results a maze of connecting seas, 

 which abound in deep, spacious, tideless 

 harbors to invite the enterprise of the 

 merchant and to provide refuge from the 

 tempest. 



THE INEEUENCE OE THE AEGEAN 



Of all those interconnecting seas the 

 iEgean or Archipelago was to exert the 

 earliest and most abiding influence. No- 

 where else did the ancient world afford 

 a like training school for seamanship. 

 The dwellers on the peninsular shores of 

 Greece and Asia Minor were impelled by 

 the circumstances of their lot to venture 

 upon, gradually to understand, and finally 

 to master the sea. And the sea gave 

 back something greater than mere ma- 

 terial returns. 



Inevitably the old land kingdoms, 

 Egypt, Assyria, Persia, India, submerged 

 the individual in the mass. As inevita- 

 bly, in the men who singly or in groups 

 of twos or threes wrestled with and over- 

 came the sea, the sense of personal in- 

 dependence was roused. This was both 

 achievement and revelation. It was the 

 impelling motive at Marathon and in all 

 the struggles for freedom since down 

 to the present day. 



Classic Greece was the creation of the 

 Mediterranean. Without the Mediter- 

 ranean there would have been no Rome, 

 of whose State it was at once the heart 

 and the bond of union. Nor has its part 

 in the world been less preeminent 

 through the middle ages down to modern 

 times. Until the sixteenth century the 

 shifting capital of the world was located 

 in some one of its three great peninsulas. 

 Of all these causes which have given to 



