The Danube, with its extensive terrace-lands, faces the east, and has, therefore, very different relations to European history from the Rhine. It is a double-headed river, and one of its head-streams, the one which bears the name of the river proper, extends almost to the Rhine basin; while the other, the Inn, has its source in the Grisons, and hard by the head-waters of the Rhine. As the Danube connects the Caspian and Black Sea basin with western Europe, and the largest part of the Asiatic immigrations have followed its course, this river has become the great avenue between Europe and Asia. Celts, Teutons, and Romans were mingled even before Christ, in Noricum, Vindelicia, Bavaria, and Suabia. How many tribes may have been pushed westward by these is unknown to us. The same fate has happened to the people who settled there before Christ, and the inroads of the Huns, Goths, and other tribes of similar origin, scattered the older inhabitants over all central Germany. We know, too, that Sclavic, Hungarian, and Turkish incursions followed, each one dispossessing wholly or in part the one which preceded it. All great rivers and river-systems have had a similar influence on the course of civilisation. There is not a single typical feature in the world which has not contributed its part to the advance of the human race; no one is without its place and its function. PART III. THE CONFIGURATION OF THE CONTINENTS. ALL the divisions of the earth, taken together in their internal and external connections, in their mutual action and reaction, constitute the unity of the globe, and make apparent that it is a simple organism, designed and created by divine skill, and intended to be the home of a race whose culture should, in the course of centuries, unfold from the most simple beginnings to the most complex and elaborate perfection. We have already seen that the surface of the earth is naturally divided into three typical features-highland, lowland, and the transition terraces between them. From the vertical and horizontal combination of these result most of the geographical forms which are the subject of our study. They form what we may, for convenience, call the bas-relief of the globe. At the creation of the earth every great continental division received (as every other organism has, regarded by itself, and not in relation to the greater whole of which it forms a part) its own special form. Each continent is like itself alone; its characteristics are not shared by any other. Each one was so planned and so formed as to have its own special function in the progress of human culture. This may be seen by reviewing the history of the past; this may fairly be suspected yet to be in the future. The individuality of each continent raises it to a place where its characteristics give it an independent character, and a capacity of development of itself, up to a certain point, but never beyond it. The continents are never to be regarded as high, dead masses of land, but as vital and effective instruments, working upon each other ceaselessly, and helping each other to attain the consummation intended in the counsels of the Divine Mind. The unity of the earth, the unity of the continents, the unity of every physical feature of the continents, and the building all up together in a perfect symmetry and mutual adaptation of parts, is the crowning thought of Geographical Science. The study of first causes has no less clear illustrations in the course of our investigations than elsewhere. It is the task of science to show the nature and mutual relations of all the subjects which fall within the scope of Natural History. The nature of the parts is only understood from a comprehension of the whole-not the reverse, however. That is a most just saying of Plato. The knowledge of the universal cannot proceed from a knowledge of the special. As the part is formed only in view of and on account of the whole, in its study, dissociated from the whole, it becomes a mere unit and independent existence. From understanding the solar system, we might arrive at a knowledge of the motion of the earth; and so, from a knowledge of the earth, we may advance to its continents, their relations, the characteristics of the different natural divisions, their subdivisions, their phenomena, and their living organisation, embracing man, animals, and plants. The external formation of the globe, or what we may call the configuration of the continents, rests upon two characteristics-the horizontal and vertical dimensions. 1. The horizontal dimensions are designated by the sealine boundary-the geographical limitation. 2. The vertical dimensions-the physical limitation— are defined by the elevation of terraces and highlands, and they exhibit the greatest diversity of phenomena.. The horizontal dimensions supply most of the material for our elementary compendiums of political geography, which seldom make much account of vertical dimensions, and which in no degree penetrate to their real value. They are commonly held to be a side-matter, to be touched upon lightly, or wholly cast aside. But both must be thoroughly studied; for they are mutually dependent, and are never found divorced in nature. In order to understand them in their true relations, , we shall look at them in their general aspect, discussing first the horizontal extent of the continents, then their vertical elevation, so far as that has not already been treated. After this twofold investigation, the character of each continent and its subdivisions will appear in its true light. On account of the importance of thoroughly understanding the articulation of great districts, in contradistinction to a mere division, which implies no organic and living correlation of parts, and which gives over to mathematics, political history, and fortuitous circumstances the duty of explaining geographical phenomena, it is instructive to trace the footsteps of our science back to some of the earlier conceptions. Eratosthenes and Polybius were aware that the south of Europe was a series of peninsulas-the first of the two speaking of the great peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and the Peloponnesus, the latter adding allusions to the smaller Grecian peninsula of Sunium, the Thracian on the Bosporus, and the Tauric Chersonesus, now known as the Crimea. Strabo got a clearer insight into the significance of these forms (whose meaning Hipparchus had already tried to explain) by discussing them according to the seabasins which they separate. Thus the Spanish peninsula separates the Gulf of Cadiz, at the Pillars of Hercules, from the Tyrrhenian Sea; Italy separates the Sicilian Sea from the Adriatic; the Peloponnesus separates the Adriatic and the Euxine. This view, though apparently simple, was really profound, for it hinted at the great significance of the maritime coast in developing the civilisation of those countries. And Strabo goes on to add that Italy, with its south-eastern and south-western extremities, becomes too pointed (dixógupos), and that the eastern peninsulas of Europe are much more jagged and articulated (ποικίλαι καὶ πολυμερείς) than Polybius had conceived them to be. He entered, therefore, upon a more minute subdivision. Strabo had already (ii. 92) called the Peloponnesus "many-parted " (Toλucedés), as the Laconian peninsula (Tænarum) is separated from Malea, the Attic from Sunium, and all southern Europe cannot, therefore, be laid out in six parts. Of the north of Europe, Strabo was not in a position to gain any accurate conception. Toward the end of his second book, where he gives his reason for beginning his description at the west, he uses the awkward but significant phrase "polymorphous formation," to indicate the superiority which Europe enjoys in its complex articulation over the other continents. The passage in Strabo runs thus: "We begin with Europe, because it is so intricately organised, and is the most favourable for human culture, and has |