EUROPA. EUROPE. form of a white bull, anil carried her to Crete, where she became the mother of Minus. Rhada- manthus, and Sarpedon. Zeus presented lier with the bronze man, Talos, a dog who never lost his prey, and a spear which never missed its mark, and later gave her to King Asterius of Crete, who adopted her sons. After her death she was worshiped under the surname Hellotia, or llellotis. Modern mythologists are inclined to see in Europa a moon goddess, or else an earth goddess of fertility, like Demeter. See also Cad- mus. EUROPA AND THE BULL. A well known painting by Titian (15(>2), representing the Phoe- nician damsel borne through the waters on the back of the metamorphosed Zens, followed by three Cupids, one being seated on a dolphin's back. The painting is now in Cobham Hall, England. EUROPE. The name is derived, according to the researches of Kiepert, Egli. and other scholars from the old Assyrian Irib or Ereb = sunset or west, which was applied to Greece to distinguish that region from Asia Minor, which was desig- nated as Assu = sunrise or east. These names, in their later forms, were finally extended, the one from Greece over all Europe, and the other from Asia Minor over all Asia. Europe is the smallest of the continents except- ing Australia. Its area is about 3,850,000 square miles, or approximately one-fourth greater than that of the United States exclusive of Alaska. It includes, with its polar and other islands, only 7.8 per cent, of the land surface of the world. It is surrounded on three sides by the sea, but its eastern frontier foi about 2000 miles joins that of Asia. The political boundary in the east doe9 not entirely conform with the natural boundary. The line is carried to the east of the central and southern Ural Mountains, the natural boundary, in ordeT to include the rich mining districts, east of the mountains, in Russia ; to the south of the Ural Mountains the Ural River is the boundary. Between the Black and Caspian seas, the main ridge of the Caucasus is generally taken to be the boundary between Europe and Asia. The natu- ral boundary in the southeast is, however, now considered by some geographers to be through the depressions of the Sea of Azov and the East and West Manitch rivers to the Caspian Sea, the entire Russian possessions south of the Manitch rivers (Ciscaucasia and Transcaucasia) being in this way included in Asia. The continent ex- tends west and east through nearly 75 degrees of longitude from Cape Roca, near Lisbon, to the Tobol River. Penetrating the polar ice zone (North Cape, 71° 11' N.), its most southerly point is Cape Tarifa. Spain, which is crossed by the thirty-sixth parallel. In proportion to area it has a much longer coast-line than any other continent, over 20.000 miles, including the more important indentations, but double that length if the entire shore line is closely followed. While Europe is merely a peninsula of the great land- mass of Asia, there are many natural and his- torical reasons which make it imperative to treat it as a distinct subdivision of the earth's surface. The situation of Europe gives it a central posi- tion in the land hemisphere. It is separated from America by the comparatively narrow Atlantic Ocean. Africa is plainly in view across the Strait of Gibraltar, nine miles wide; Europe also closely approaches Africa at the strait between Sici and Tunis. Topography. Three phases of the topographic aspects of Europe are particularly noteworthy. (1) The dissected, pointed, broken character of a large pari of the coasi line, giving it relatively a greater coastal development than any other con- tinent possesses; (2) the predominance of low plains and the small area of high table lands in- closed by mountains, a characteristic feature of Inner Asia; (3) the absence of deserts, Kurope being the only continent without desert area On the Atlantic and the Mediterranean sides is a rich island world and a number of very large peninsulas, the islands and peninsulas m bracing about half as large an area as that of the continental mass. Most of the Atlantic islands rise from the continental shelf, were once a part of the continent, and are now the ruins of its former edge. The ocean far and wide around them does not exceed 700 feet in depth. Iceland is included in Europe because it stands on the wide, high submarine plateau extending from Norway to Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland, separating the Atlantic from the polar ice basins. These fragments torn from the continent are particularly numerous north of the fiftieth parallel. Very conspicuous island- among many hundreds are Nova Zembla, Vaigatch, and Kolguyev (on the Arctic side J ; Zealand and other Danish islands, Gothland, Osel, Dago, and Aland (in the Baltic) ; and most important of all, the British Isles, Shetlands, and Ork- neys, composing the British group; to these may be added the distinctive polar islands, Spitz- bergen, Bear Island. Jan Mayen, and Franz-Josef Land. The islands in the ocean, including t lie- Baltic, have an area about six times as large as those of the Mediterranean, which include the Balearic group, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily. Crete, Cyprus, and the numerous islands of the Grecian Archipelago in the .'Egean Sea. The Scandinavian Peninsula, the largest in Europe, and the Jutland Peninsula admit the deep sea into the continental mass. Here is the Mediterranean of the north, the Baltic Sea with its three extensions, the Gulfs of Bothnia, Finland, and Riga. Only one-fourth as salt, as the ocean, and therefore freezing more easily, most of this inland sea is unavailable for navigation during the ice months. The many large rivers emptying into the Baltic and its narrow connection with the ocean account for its small salinity. On the other hand, the North Sea, between Great Britain and the continent, is. in fact, a part of the Atlantic and has the full effect of its tides. Brittany is a peninsular pro- jection, which hounds the deep recess of the Bay of Biscay on the north. In the extreme south the continent is dissolved into three great peninsulas — the Iberian, the Italian, and the Balkan. The northern part of the Mediterranean is divided by these peninsulas into several sections: the -Egean Sea. between the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor, connected with the inclose,! basins of the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea by the narrow strait of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus; the Ionian and the Adriatic seas between the Balkan Peninsula and Italy; and the Tyrrhenian Sea. in the tri- angular space between Italy and the three large islands of Sicily. Sardinia, and Corsica; the great bight north of Corsica is the Gulf of Genoa.
