Euri'pus. See CHALCIS, EUBA.

Euroc'lydon, in the Authorised Version, following the ordinary Greek text, was the tempestuous wind by which St Paul's ship was wrecked (Acts, xxvii. 14). The revised translation, taking the Greek reading eurakylon, has Euraquilo, a north-easter.' This is sometimes identified with the Bora (q.v.). Euro'pa, the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor, whom Zeus, in the form of a bull, bore off to Crete, where she became the mother of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon.

Europe is historically and politically by far the most important of the five great divisions of the world, though Asia vastly exceeds it in population. Geographically it should be regarded rather as a peninsula of Asia, or as a portion of the great joint Eurasian continent; in regard to physical geography, fauna, and flora, it is difficult to draw a sharp line between Europe and Asia. On three sides Europe is bounded by sea-north by the Arctic Ocean, west by the Atlantic, south by the Mediterranean, Sea of Marmora, and Black Sea. But on the east the Urals, Ural River, and Caspian, though commonly assumed as the boundary towards Asia, do not mark a precise limit in respect of climate, flora, fauna, or physical conditions generally (see this discussed at ASIA); and actually the governments of Perm and Orenburg in Russia in Europe extend far beyond the Urals. Between the Caspian and the Black Sea, the ridge of the Caucasus seems a convenient dividing line between Europe and Asia, but the Manytch depression is really, from the geographical point of view, a more correct boundary; physically the whole of the Caucasus region is part of Asia (q.v.). It is more curious that North Africa and South Europe are very closely related in many respects, geological and biological. It has even been said that the mountains of Auvergne divide northern France more sharply from Provence than the Mediterranean does southern Provence from Morocco and Algeria. But in current usage Europe is bounded on three sides by sea, and elsewhere by the Kara River, the Ural Mountains, Ural River, the Caspian, and the Caucasus.

Various etymologies have been proposed for the name Europe. The old mythological one was that it was named from Europa (q.v.)—why, was not very clear. Another was that it came from Eurus, the south-east wind. A third, given by Hermann, notes that the name is first applied, not to the whole continent, but (in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo) to the mainland of Thrace, as distinguished from the Peloponnesus and the Greek islands, and suggests that Europe therefore means Broad Land (eurus ōps, 'broad face'). Of late the tendency is to assume that the name was first given by Phoenician traders, and is from the word Erebh, darkness' i.e. the land of sunset, of the west. The area to which the name of Europe was applied grew with the extension of Greek geographical knowledge.

Europe has a total length from Cape St Vincent on the south-west to the mouth of the Kara River on the north-east of 3400 miles; and from North Cape in Norway to Cape Matapan, the southernmost point of Greece, a total breadth of 2400 miles. The continent of Europe, irrespective of islands, lies within 36° 20′-71° 10' N. lat., and 9° 30′ W.-66° 30′ E. long. Its area is estimated at 3,800,000 sq. m., being about a third of that of Africa, a fourth of that of America, and a fifth of that of Asia. It does not greatly exceed the total area of the United States. Its indented coast-line is more extensive in proportion to its size than that of any other great natural division of the globe, and is estimated to measure little less than 50,000 miles. This is caused by its great irregularity,

and the number of deep inlets and gulfs which penetrate its surface. It has a population of about 400,000,000, which gives an average of about 107 for every square mile.

The body of the European continent divides itself naturally into two great portions-the great plain in the north-east, and the highlands from near the centre towards the south-west, the mountainous peninsula of Scandinavia lying apart from either. The plain occupies about two-thirds (2,500,000 sq. (See the accompanying physical map of Europe.) m.) of the entire extent of the continent. It reaches from the eastern boundary of Europe, north to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, south to the Caucasus and the Black Sea, and westward over the whole extent of the continent; gradually, however, becoming narrower towards the west. In shape this plain resembles a triangle; its base rests on the eastern boundary, and it may be said to reach its apex on the shores of Holland. It separates the two mountain-systems of Europe the Scandinavian system (highest summit 7566 feet) on the north, and on the south the system of southern Europe. The mass of the Alps, covering an area of nearly 100,000 sq. m., forms the centre of the mountain-system of southern and western Europe, and stretches down on four sides towards France, Germany, Hungary, and Italy; the highest summit being 15,732 feet. The other chief mountainmasses are the Carpathians (8343 feet) the Balkans (9750), the Apennines (9574), the Pyrenees (11,170), and the Sierra Nevada (11,660), and in Sicily, Etna (10,758). The highest inhabited spot in Europe is, since 1882, the observatory on Etna (9075 feet), nearly 1000 feet higher than the hospice of the Great St Bernard. See ALPS, APENNINES, BALKAN, CARPATHIANS, PYRENEES, &c.

Europe is surrounded by water on three sides. The White Sea comes in from the Arctic Ocean; the German Ocean and the Mediterranean from the Atlantic. The most important peninsulas are in the north Scandinavia, and in the south the Crimea, the Balkan peninsula (with Greece), Italy, and Spain. With the exception of Iceland, the islands cluster closely round the mainland, the chief being Great Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Nova Zembla, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and Crete (Candia). The lakes of Europe are small as compared with those of Africa or America, the largest being Ladoga and Onega in Russia, and Wener in Sweden. The Volga (2400 miles), the Danube (1740), the Don (1125), the Kama (1050), the Petchora (1000), the Ural (800), and the Rhine (760) are the largest rivers of Europe.

The details of the geography of Europe are given under the names of its several political divisions, and of its lakes, rivers, and mountains.

Geology. The oldest rocks of Europe-viz. the Archæan and Palæozoic-occupy the most continuous area in the northern part of the continent. Thus, they extend over all the Scandinavian peninsula, Finland, and a considerable portion of northern Russia. In western Europe they are likewise well developed, as in the British Islands, which (if we except the midlands, and the eastern and south-eastern parts of England) may be said to be mainly composed of Archæan and Palæozoic rocks. Similar rocks_cover extensive areas in Brittany, in central France, and in the Iberian peninsula. In central Europe they occur for the most part in sporadic areas of limited extent, which upon a geological map look like islands surrounded by younger strata than themselves. One of the largest of those areas is that which stretches from the north of France through the Ardennes and southern Belgium into Rheinland, Westphalia, and Nassau. Another considerable tract occupies most of Bohemia, and smaller areas are met

with in most of the mountain ranges of Germany and central Europe. Archaean and Palæozoic rocks likewise appear to form the nuclei of the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Caucasus, while the Ural range is exclusively composed of such rocks. In the maritime regions of the Mediterranean, crystalline schists and Palæozoic strata are sparingly met with, as in southern and eastern Spain, in Sardinia, and Corsica. Considerable tracts of schistose rocks, however, extend through the Balkan peninsula, and appear in many of the islands of the Ægean, in southern Greece, southern Italy, &c. Having mentioned the main areas at which these oldest rocks appear at the surface, it is not necessary to refer to the distribution of the Mesozoic and Cainozoic strata, save in the most general terms. They are confined chiefly to the low grounds of the continent, although now and again, as in the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Caucasus, they rise to great elevations. It may be added also that they enter into the composition of not a few other hilly regions, such as the Carpathians, the Apennines, the high grounds of Herzegovina, Albania, &c. Accumulations of Pleistocene and Recent age are met with alike in mountainous and lowland regions. They are developed most continuously in the low grounds of central Europe -extending from the borders of the North Sea across Germany far into Russia. They likewise form enormous tracts of flat land bordering on the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the Caspian. The alluvial lands through which the great rivers of Europe flow belong to the same division of geological time, while the glacial deposits which form the under-soils throughout a large part of northern Europe, and which reappear in the mountain-valleys of more southern regions, are all likewise included amongst Pleistocene and Recent accumulations.

Geologists are not yet agreed as to the origin of the Archæan rocks, and it is altogether premature, therefore, to speculate upon the physical conditions of Europe at the period of their formation. They consist chiefly of metamorphic rocks, some of which can be proved to have been originally eruptive, some volcanic, and others, again, sedimentary.

Leaving the Archæan, we find that the next oldest strata are those which were accumulated during the Cambrian period, to which succeeded the Silurian, the Devonian and Old Red Sandstone, the Carboniferous, and the Permian periods-all represented by great thicknesses of strata, which overspread wide regions.

Now, at the beginning of the Cambrian period, we have evidence to show that the primeval ridge which was subsequently to become the continent of Europe was still largely under water, the dry land being massed chiefly in the north. At that distant date a broad land-surface extended from the Outer Hebrides north-eastwards through Scandinavia, Finland, and northern Russia. How much farther north and north-west of the present limits of Europe that ancient land may have spread we cannot tell, but it probably occupied wide regions which are now submerged in the shallow waters of the Arctic Ocean. In the north of Scotland a large inland sea or lake existed in Cambrian times, and there is some evidence to suggest that similar lacustrine conditions may have obtained in the Welsh area at the beginning of the period. South of the northern land lay a shallow sea covering all middle and southern Europe. That sea, however, was dotted here and there with a few islands of Archæan rocks, occupying the site of what are now some of the hills of middle Germany, such as the Riesengebirge, the Erzgebirge, the Fichtelgebirge, &c., and possibly some of the Archæan districts of France and the Iberian peninsula.

The succeeding period was one of eminently

marine conditions, the wide distribution of Silurian strata showing that, during the accumulation of these, enormous tracts of the present continent of Europe were overflowed by the sea. None of these deposits, however, is of truly oceanic origin. They appear for the most part to have been laid down in shallow seas, which here and there may have been moderately deep. During the formation of the Lower Silurian the whole of the British area, with the exception perhaps of some of the Archæan tracts of the north-west, seems to have been under water. The submergence had commenced in Cambrian times, and was continued up to the close of the Lower Silurian period. During this long-continued period of submergence volcanic activity manifested itself at various points-Great Britain and Ireland being represented at that time by groups of volcanic islands, scattered over the site of what is now Wales, and extending westward into the Irish region, and northward into the districts of Cumberland and south Ayrshire. Towards the close of the Lower Silurian period considerable earth-movements took place, which had the effect of increasing the amount of dry land, the most continuous mass or masses of which still occupied the northern and north-western part of the continent. In the beginning of Upper Silurian times a broad sea covered the major portion of middle and probably all southern Europe. Numerous islands, however, would seem to have existed in such regions as Wales, the various tracts of older Palæozoic and Archæan rocks of south Germany, &c. Many of these islands were partially, and some entirely, submerged before the close of Silurian times.

The next great period-that, namely, which witnessed the accumulation of the Devonian and Old Red Sandstone strata-was in some respects strongly contrasted to the preceding period. The Silurian rocks, as already mentioned, are eminently marine. The Old Red Sandstones, on the other hand, appear to have been accumulated chiefly in great lakes or inland seas, and they betoken therefore the former existence of extensive lands, while the contemporaneous Devonian strata are of marine origin. Towards the close of the Upper Silurian period, then, we know that considerable upheavals ensued in western and north-western Europe, and wide stretches of the Silurian seabottom were converted into dry land. The geographical distribution of the Devonian in Europe, and the relation of that system to the Silurian, show that the Devonian sea did not cover so broad an expanse as that of the Upper Silurian. The sea had shallowed, and the area of dry land had increased, when the Devonian strata began to accumulate. In trying to realise the conditions that obtained during the formation of the Devonian and Old Red Sandstone, we may picture to ourselves a time when the Atlantic extended eastwards over the south of England and the north-east of France, and occupied the major portion of central Europe, sweeping north-east into Russia, and how much farther we cannot tell. North of that sea stretched a wide land-surface, in the hollows of which lay great lakes or inland seas, which seem now and again to have had communication with the open ocean. It was in these lakes that the Old Red Sandstone was accumulated, while the

Devonian or marine rocks were formed in the wide waters lying to the south. Submarine volcanoes were active at that time in Germany; and similarly in Scotland numerous volcanoes existed, such as those of the Sidlaw Hills and the Cheviots.

The Carboniferous system contains the record of a long and complex series of geographical changes, but the chief points of importance in the present rapid review may be very briefly summed up. In

the earlier part of the period marine conditions prevailed. Thus, we find evidence to show that the sea extended farther north than it did during the preceding Devonian period. During the forma tion of the mountain-limestone, a deep sea covered the major portion of Ireland and England, but shallowed off as it entered the Scottish area. A few rocky islets were all that represented Ireland and England at that time. Passing eastwards, the Carboniferous sea appears to have covered the low grounds of middle Europe and enormous tracts in Russia. The deepest part of the sea lay over the Anglo-Hibernian and Franco-Belgian areas; towards the east it became shallower. Probably the same sea swept over all southern Europe, but many islands may have diversified its surface, as in Brittany and central France, in Spain and Portugal, and in the various areas of older Palæozoic and Archæan rocks in central and south-east Europe. In the later stages of the Carboniferous period, the limits of the sea were much circumscribed, and wide continental conditions supervened. Enormous marshes, jungles, and forests now overspread the newly-formed lands. Another feature of the Carboniferous was the great number of volcanoes— submarine and subaerial-which were particularly abundant in Scotland, especially during the earlier stages of the period.

The rocks of the Permian period seem to have been deposited chiefly in closed basins. When, owing to the movement of elevation or upheaval which took place in late Carboniferous times, the carboniferous limestone sea had been drained away from extensive areas in central Europe, wide stretches of sea still covered certain considerable tracts. These, however, as time went on, were eventually cut off from the main ocean and converted into great salt lakes. Such inland seas overspread much of the low-lying tracts of Britain and middle Germany, and they also extended over a broad space in the north-east of Russia. It was in these seas that the Permian strata were accumulated. The period, it may be added, was marked by the reappearance of volcanic action in Scotland and Germany.

So far, then, as our present knowledge goes, that part of the European continent which was the earliest to be evolved lay towards the north-west and north. All through the Palæozoic era a landsurface would seem to have endured in that direction-a land-surface from the denudation or wearing down of which the marine sedimentary formations of the bordering regions were derived. But, when we reflect on the great thickness and horizontal extent of those sediments, we can hardly doubt that the primeval land must have had a much wider range towards the north and northwest than is the case with modern Europe. The lands from which the older Palæozoic marine sediments of the British Islands and Scandinavia were obtained must, for the most part, be now submerged. In later Palæozoic times land began to extend in the Spanish peninsula, northern France, and middle Europe, the denudation of which doubtless furnished materials for the elaboration of the contemporaneous strata of those regions. Southern Europe is so largely composed of Mesozoic and Cainozoic rocks that we can say very little as to the condition of that area in Palæozoic times, but the probabilities are that it continued for the most part under marine conditions. In few words, then, we may conclude that, while after Archæan times dry land prevailed in the north and north-west, marine conditions predominated farther south. Ever and anon, however, the sea vanished from wide regions in central Europe, and was replaced by terrestrial and lacustrine conditions. Further, as none of the Paleozoic marine

strata indicates a deep ocean, but all consist for the most part of accumulations formed at moderate depths, it follows that there must have been general subsidence of our area to allow of their successive deposition-a subsidence, however, which was frequently interrupted by long pauses, and sometimes by movements in the opposite direction.

The first period of the Mesozoic era-viz. the Triassic-was characterised by much the same kind of conditions as obtained towards the close of Paleozoic times. A large inland sea then covered a considerable portion of England, and seems to have extended north into the south of Scotland, and across the area of the Irish Sea into the north-east of Ireland. Another inland sea extended westward from the Thüringerwald across the Vosges into France, and stretched northwards from the confines of Switzerland over what are now the low grounds of Holland and northern Germany. In this ancient sea the Harz Mountains formed a rocky island. While terrestrial and lacustrine_conditions thus obtained in central and northern Europe, an open sea existed in the more southerly regions of the continent. Towards the close of the period submergence ensued in the English and German areas, and the salt lakes became connected with the open sea.

During the Jurassic period the regions now occupied in Britain and Ireland by the older rocks appear to have been chiefly dry land. Scotland and Ireland, for the most part, stood above the sea-level, while nearly all England was under water-the hills of Cumberland and Westmorland, the Pennine chain, Wales, the heights of Devon and Cornwall, and a ridge of Paleozoic rocks which underlies London being the chief lands in south Britain. The same sea overflowed an extensive portion of what is now the continent. The older rocks in the north-west and north-east of France, and the central plateau of the same country, formed dry land; all the rest of that country was submerged. In like manner the sea covered much of eastern Spain. In middle Europe it overflowed nearly all the low grounds of north Germany, and extended far east into the heart of Russia. It occupied the site of the Jura Mountains, and passed eastward into Bohemia, while on the south side of the Alps it spread over a large part of Italy, extending eastwards so as to submerge a broad area in Austria, Hungary, and the Balkan peninsula. Thus the northern latitudes of Europe continued to be the site of the chief land-masses, what are now the central and southern portions of the continent being a great archipelago with numerous islands, large and small.

The Jurassic rocks, attaining as they do a thickness of several thousand feet, point to very considerable subsidence. The movement, however, was not continuous, but ever and anon was interrupted by pauses. Taken as a whole, the strata appear to have accumulated in a comparatively shallow sea, which, however, was sufficiently deep in places to allow of the growth, in clear water, of coral reefs.

Towards the close of the Jurassic period a movement of elevation ensued, which caused the sea to retreat from wide areas, and thus, when the Cretaceous period began, the British region was chiefly dry land. Middle Europe would seem also to have participated in this upward movement. Eventually, however, subsidence again ensued. Most of what are now the low grounds of Britain were submerged, the sea stretching eastwards over a vast region in middle Europe, as far as the slopes of the Urals. The deepest part of this sea, however, was in the west, and lay over England and

northern France. Farther east, in what are now Saxony and Bohemia, the waters were shallow, and gradually became silted up. In the Mediterranean basin a wide open sea existed, covering large sections of eastern Spain and southern France, overflowing the site of the Jura Mountains, drowning most of the Alpine lands, the Italian peninsula, the eastern borders of the Adriatic, and Greece. In short, there are good grounds for believing that the Cretaceous Mediterranean was not only much broader than the present sea, but that it extended into Asia, overwhelming vast regions there, and communicated with the Indian Ocean.

Summing up what we know of the principal geographical changes that took place during the Mesozoic era, we are impressed with the fact that, all through those changes, a wide land-surface persisted in the north and north-west of the European area, just as was the case in Palæozoic times. The highest grounds were the Urals and the uplands of Scandinavia and Britain. In middle Europe the Pyrenees and the Alps were as yet inconsiderable heights, the loftiest lands being those of the Harz, the Riesengebirge, and other regions of Palæozoic and Archæan rocks. The lower parts of England and the great plains of central Europe were sometimes submerged in the waters of a more or less continuous sea; but ever and anon elevation ensued, and the sea was divided, as it were, into a series of great lakes. In the south of Europe a Mediterranean sea would appear to have endured all through the Mesozoic era-a Mediterranean of considerably greater extent, however, than the present. Thus we see that the main features of our continent were already clearly outlined before the close of the Cretaceous period. The continental area then, as now, consisted of a wide belt of high ground in the north, extending roughly from south-west to north-east; south of this, a vast stretch of low grounds, sweeping from west to east up to the foot of the Urals, and bounded on the south by an irregular zone of land having approximately the same trend; still farther south, the maritime tracts of the Mediterranean basin. During periods of depression the low grounds of central Europe were invaded by the sea, the irregular zone of land lying immediately to the south was partially submerged, and so converted into groups of islands, and the Mediterranean at the same time extended north over many regions which are now dry land. It is in these two low-lying tracts, therefore, and the country immediately adjoining them, that the Mesozoic strata of Europe are chiefly developed.

A general movement of upheaval supervened at the close of the Cretaceous period, and the sea which, during that period, overflowed so much of middle Europe had largely disappeared before the beginning of Eocene times. The southern portions of the continent, however, were still mostly under water, while great bays and arms of the sea extended northwards now and again into central Europe. On to the close of the Miocene period, indeed, southern and south-eastern Europe consisted of a series of irregular straggling islands and peninsulas washed by the waters of a genial sea. Towards the close of early Cainozoic times, the Alps, which had hitherto been of small importance, were greatly upheaved, as were also the Pyrenees and the Carpathians. The floor of the Eocene sea in the Alpine region was ridged up for many thousands of feet, its deposits being folded, twisted, inverted, and metamorphosed. Another great elevation of the same area was effected after the Miocene period, the accumulations of that period now forming considerable mountains along the northern flanks of the Alpine chain. Notwith

standing these gigantic elevations in south-central Europe-perhaps in consequence of them-the low-lying tracts of what is now southern Europe continued to be largely submerged, and even the middle regions of the continent were now and again occupied by broad lakes which sometimes communicated with the sea. In Miocene times, for example, an arm of the Mediterranean extended up the Rhone valley, and stretched across the north of Switzerland to the basin of the Danube. After the elevation of the Miocene strata, these inland stretches of sea disappeared, but the Mediterranean still overflowed wider areas in southern Europe than it does in our day. Eventually, however, in late Pliocene times, the bed of that sea experienced considerable elevation, newer Pliocene strata occurring in Sicily up to a height of 3000 feet at least. It was probably at or about that period that the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov retreated from the wide low grounds of southern Russia, and that the inland seas and lakes of central Europe finally vanished.

The Cainozoic era is distinguished in Europe for its volcanic phenomena. The grandest eruptions were those of the Eocene period. To that date belong the basalts of Antrim, Mull, Skye, the Faeroe Islands, and the older series of volcanic rocks in Iceland. These basalts speak to us of prodigious fissure eruptions, when molten rock welled up along the lines of great cracks in the earth's crust, flooding wide regions, and building up enormous plateaus, of which we now behold the merest fragments. The ancient volcanoes of central France, those of the Eifel country and many other places in Germany, and the volcanic rocks of Hungary are all of Cainozoic age; while, in the south of Europe, Etna, Vesuvius, and other Italian volcanoes date their origin to the later stages of the same great era.

Thus before the beginning of Pleistocene times all the main features of Europe had come into existence. Since the close of the Pliocene period there have been many great revolutions of climate; several very considerable oscillations of the sealevel have taken place, and the land has been subjected to powerful and long-continued erosion. But the greater contours of the surface which began to appear in Palæozoic times, and which in Mesozoic times were more strongly pronounced, had been fully evolved by the close of the Pliocene period. The most remarkable geographical changes which have taken place since then have been successive elevations and depressions, in consequence of which the area of the continent has been alternately increased and diminished. At a time well within the human period the British Islands have been united to themselves and the continent, and the dry land has extended north-west and north, so as to include Spitsbergen, the Faeroe Islands, and perhaps Iceland. On the other hand, the British Islands have been within a recent period largely submerged.

The general conclusion, then, to which we are led by a review of the greater geographical changes through which the European continent has passed is simply this that the substructure upon which all the sedimentary strata repose is of primeval antiquity. The dry lands are built up of rocks which have been accumulated over the surface of a great wrinkle of the earth's crust. There have been endless movements of elevation and depression, causing minor deformations, as it were, of that wrinkle, and inducing constant changes in the distribution of land and water; but no part of the continental ridge has ever been depressed to an abysmal depth. The ridge has endured through all geological time. We can see also that the land has been evolved according to a definite plan.