Page:EB1911 - Volume 09.djvu/942

in the Lipari group, have been familiarly known from the earliest historic times; but the fourth has only attracted particular attention since the 18th century. It lies in the Archipelago, on the southern edge of the Cyclades, near the little group of islets called Santorin. The region was evidently highly volcanic at an earlier period, for Milo, one of the nearest of the islands, is simply a ruined crater still presenting smoking solfataras and other traces of former activity. The devastations produced by the eruptions of the European volcanoes are usually confined within very narrow limits; and it is only at long intervals that any part of the continent is visited by a really formidable earthquake. The only part of Europe, however, for which there are no recorded earthquakes is central and northern Russia; and the Alps and Carpathians, especially the intra-Carpathian area of depression, Greece, Italy, especially Calabria and the adjoining part of Sicily, the Sierra Nevada and the Pyrenees, the Lisbon district and the rift valley of the upper Rhine (between the Vosges and the Black Forest) are all regions specially liable to earthquake shocks and occasionally to shocks of considerable intensity. One well-marked seismic line extends along the south side of the Alps from Lake Garda by Udine and Görz to Fiume, and another forms a curve convex towards the south-east passing first through Calabria, then through the north-east of Sicily to the south of the Peloritan Mountains.^[1] Of all European earthquakes in modern times, the most destructive are that of Lisbon in 1755, and that of Calabria in 1783; the devastation produced by the former has become a classical instance of such disasters in popular literature, and by the latter 100,000 people are said to have lost their lives. Calabria again suffered severely in 1865, 1870, 1894, 1905 and 1908.

If the European mountains are arranged according to their greatest elevations, they rank as follows:—(1) the Swiss Alps, with their highest peaks above 15,000 ft.; (2) the Sierra Nevada, the Pyrenees, and Etna, about 11,000 ft.; (3) the Apennines, the Corsican Mountains, the Carpathians, the Balkans, Relief. and the Despoto Dagh, from 8000 to 9000; (4) the Guadarrama, the Scandinavian Alps, the Dinaric Alps, the Greek Mountains, and the Cevennes, between 6000 and 8000; (5) the mountains of Auvergne, the Jura, the Riesengebirge, the mountains of Sardinia, Majorca, Minorca, and the Crimea, the Black Forest, the Vosges, and the Scottish Highlands, from 4000 to 6000.

The following estimates are based on those contained in the fifth edition, by Dr Hermann Wagner, of Guthe’s Lehrbuch der Geographie. In the original the figures are given in German sq. m. and in sq. kilometres in round numbers, and the equivalents here given in English sq. m. are similarly treated:—

	Sq. m.
The great European plain in its widest sense	2,660,000
The same exclusive of inland seas	2,300,000
The same exclusive of the Scandinavian and British lowlands	2,125,000
All other European lowlands	385,000
The Hungarian plain	38,000
The Po plain	21,000
The Scandinavian highlands	190,000
The Ural Mountains	127,000
The Alps	85,000
The Carpathians	72,000
The Apennines	42,500
The Pyrenees	21,500

Several estimates have been made of the average elevation of the continent, but it is enough to give here the main results. In the following list, where a conversion from metres into feet has been necessary, the nearest multiple of 5 ft. has been given:—Humboldt, 675 ft.; Leipoldt,^[2] 975 ft.; De Lapparent,^[3] 960 ft.; Murray,^[4] 939 ft.; Supan,^[5] 950 ft.; von Tillo,^[6] 1040 ft.; Heiderich,^[7] 1230 ft.; Penck,^[8] 1085 ft. The exceptionally high estimate of Heiderich is due to the fact that by him Transcaucasia and the islands of Novaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and Iceland are reckoned as included in Europe.

Name of River.	Length in English Miles.		Area of Basin  in sq. m.
	Strelbitsky.	Other  Authorities.	Strelbitsky.
Volga	1977[9]	2107[10]	563,300
Danube	1644	..	315,435
Ural	1446	1477[10]	96,350
Dnieper (Dnyepr)	1064	1328[10]	203,460
Kama	984	1115[10]	202,615
Don (Russia)	980	1123[10]	166,125
Pechora	915	1024[10]	127,225
Rhine	709	..	63,265
Oka	706	914[10]	93,205
Dniester (Dnyestr)	646	835[10]	29,675
Elbe	612	..	55,340
Vistula	596	646[10]	73,905
Vyatka	596	680[10]	50,555
Tagus	566	..	31,865[11]
Theiss (Tisza)	550	..	59,350
Loire	543	..	46,755
Save	535	..	37,595
Meuse	530	..	12,740
Mezen	496	507[10]	30,410
Donets	487	613[10]	37,890
Douro	485	..	36,705
Düna (S. Dvina)	470	576[10]	32,975
Ebro	470	..	38,580[11]
Rhone	447	..	38,180
Desna	438	590[10]	33,535
Niemen (Nyeman)	437	537[10]	34,965
Drave	434	..	15,745
Bug (Southern)	428	477[10]	26,225
Seine	425	..	30,030
Oder	424	..	17,150
Kuban	405	509[10]	21,490
Khoper	387	563[10]	23,120
Maros	390	..	16,975
Pripet	378	404[10]	46,805
Guadalquivir	374	..	21,580[11]
Pruth (Prutŭ)	368	503[10]	10,330
Northern Dvina	358	447[10]	141,075
Weser-Werra	355	..	19,925
Po	354	..	28,920[11]
Garonne-Gironde	342	..	32,745
Vetluga	328	464[10]	14,325
Pinega	328	407[10]	17,425
Glommen	326	352[12]	15,930
Bug (Western)	318	450[10]	22,460
Guadiana	316	..	25,300[11]
Aluta (Alt, Oltŭ)	308	..	9,095
Mosel	300	..	10,950
Main	300	..	10,600
Maritsa	272	..	20,790
Jucar	270	..	7,620[11]
Mologa	268	338[10]	15,005
Tornea	268	..	13,045
Inn	268	..	9,825
Saône	268	..	8,295
Moldau	255	267[12]	10,860
Moksha	249	371[10]	19,090
Ljusna	243	..	7,700
Mur	242	..	5,200
Morava, Servian	235	..	15,715
Klar	224	..	4,520
Voronezh	218	305[10]	7,760
Berezina	218	285[10]	9,295
Saale	215	..	8,970
Onega	212	245[10]	22,910
Vág (Waag)	212	..	6,245
Dema	209	275[10]	4,830
San	203	444[10]	6,135
Moskva	189	305[10]	5,910
Western Manych	176	295[10]	37,820
Klyazma	159	394[10]	15,200

Of more geographical significance than these estimates are the facts with regard to the arrangement of the highlands of the continent. It is indeed this arrangement combined with the form of the coast-line which has indirectly given to Europe its individuality. Three points have to be noted under Arrangement of
the highlands. this head:—(1) the fact that the highlands of Europe are so distributed as to allow of the penetration of westerly winds far to the east; (2) the fact that the principal series of highlands has a direction from east to west, Europe in this point resembling Asia but differing from North America; and (3) that in Europe the mountain systems belonging to the series of highlands

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1. See Ed. Suess, The Face of the Earth, translated by H. B. C. Sollas, vol. i. (Oxford, 1904); J. Milne, Seismology (London, 1886); R. Hörnes, Erdbebenkunde (Leipzig, 1893).
2. Die mittlere Höhe Europas (Plauen, 1874).
3. Traité de géologie (Paris, 1883).
4. Scot. Geog. Mag. (1888), p. 23.
5. Petermanns Mitteilungen (1889), p. 17.
6. Trans. (Izvestiya) Imp. Rus. Geog. Soc. (1889), p. 113.
7. Die mittleren Erhebungsverhaltnisse der Erdoberfläche, pt. i., in Penck’s Geographische Abhandlungen, vol. v. (Vienna, 1891).
8. Morphologie der Erdoberfläche, vol. i.
9. The equivalent of the figures given in Superficie de l’Europe. A later measurement by Strelbitsky yielded a result equal to 2215 English miles.
10. General von Tillo, in Transactions (Izvestiya) Imp. Rus. Geog. Soc. vol. xix. (1883), pp. 160-161.
11. Dr Al. Bludau in Petermanns Mitteilungen (1898), pp. 185-187, has given new calculations of the areas of the basins of certain European rivers, namely, the Tagus, 31,250 sq. m.; Ebro, 32,810 sq. m.; Guadalquivir, 21,620 sq. m.; Po, 28,800 sq. m.; Guadiana, 25,810 sq. m.; and Jucar, 8245 sq. m.
12. St Martin, Dict. de géog. univ.