COLONIES. In Asia: Java, most of Sumatra, most of Borneo, the Moluccas, part of New Guinea, and many other islands of the Malay Archipelago.

In the West Indies: Curacao and several smaller islands. In South America: Dutch Guiana, also called Surinam.

Sect. XVI. DENMARK.

322. EXTENT. Denmark is more than twice the size of Yorkshire, but contains less inhabitants than does that county.

323. BOUNDARIES. Denmark is bounded on the South by Prussia; on the West by the North Sea and the Skager Rack; on the East by the Baltic and the Cattegat.

324. ATTACHED ISLANDS. (1) Zealand, Funen, Laland, and smaller islands between the Cattegat and the Baltic. (2) The Feroe islands north of the Shetlands.

(3) Iceland; the English corruption for island, as pronounced in Denmark. Nothing to do with ice as a derivation, though there happens to be much ice in Iceland.

325. STRAITS. (1) The Skager Rack and Cattegat, and three narrow straits leading from the Cattegat into the Baltic, viz. :

(2) The Sound, between Zealand and Sweden.

(3) The Great Belt, between Zealand and Funen.

(4) The Little Belt, between Funen and the Danish Main. 326. CLIMATE. Much the same as of Yorkshire.

327. MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS. Denmark is, like Belgium and Holland, really part of the great plain of Northern Europe, and is as level as Prussia adjoining. The rivers are all necessarily small.

328. COMMUNICATIONS. Denmark has good water communication, and this at once prevents the necessity of, and makes great difficulties in constructing, large railway communication.

For rapid access to Europe, a railway proceeds west from Copenhagen across Zealand and Funen to Frederica on the

mainland; but it is of course necessary to cross the Great and Little Belts by ferries, making two breaks in the rail.

329. RACES OF MEN. The Danish are Teutons, of the Northern or Scandinavian branch. They are very like Englishmen, being the same people who largely settled in England under the name of Danes or Northmen.

330. HISTORIC SKETCH. At the time of the Norman conquest Denmark and Norway were influential states in Europe; but in modern times the states of Northern Europe owing to their small population have come to be of much smaller importance. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, have been joined together in various ways, and with very varying boundaries. In 1397 they were all united under one sovereign. In 1523 Sweden separated, but the King of Denmark remained King of Norway up till the time of Napoleon. At the peace of 1815 Norway was given to Sweden because Denmark had adhered to Napoleon. Small as Denmark was thus made, she became materially smaller by the war of 1864, when she lost Holstein and a large part of Slesvig to Prussia.

331. PRESENT CONSTITUTION. A limited constitutiona monarchy. There are two Chambers, the Lower elected by a popular election; the Upper partly of crown life-peers, mainly of members elected from those who have served previously in the lower chamber.

332. RELIGION. Protestant Christianity of the Lutheran form is the established religion in Denmark, and very nearly the whole population adheres to it.

333. LANGUAGE. The Danish is a Teutonic language of the Scandinavian branch, not very remote from English.

334. ANIMALS AND PLANTS. Very nearly the same as those of Yorkshire. The otter and pole-cat are still common. The wolf was extirpated only half a century ago; the wild-boar a century ago.

335. MINERALS. Denmark has no mines of importance. 336. DIVISIONS. (1) The Danish mainland contains now only the province of Jutland, with a fragment of Slesvig.

K

&c.

(2) The metropolitan island Zeeland, with Funen, Laland,

(3) The Feroe islands, numerous small islands north of the Shetlands.

(4) Iceland. The habitable part of this island is the south, just outside the Arctic Circle. The island in area is larger than all Denmark, but the greater part of it is ice and snow, unexplored. The population is 65,000 Scandinavians, i.e. Danes and Norwegians.

Iceland is celebrated for the volcano Hecla, and the hot springs called the Geysers. A geyser at rest is like a well. At times, about once in twenty-four hours in the case of some of them, a column of water 50 to 100 feet high, nearly boiling, is shot up.

337. TOWNS. Copenhagen, the capital, in Zeeland, a port on the Sound, contains 155,000 inhabitants. No other town in Denmark contains even 15,000 inhabitants.

DENMARK (Abstract).

ATTACHED ISLANDS. Zeeland, Funen, Feroe, Iceland. STRAITS. Skager Rack, Cattegat, Sound, Great Belt, Little Belt.

MOUNTAIN. Hecla (in Iceland).

DIVISIONS. Jutland, Slesvig, Zeeland, Funen.

TOWN (with its population)-Copenhagen, 155,000. COLONIES. In the West Indies, St. Thomas and one or two other small islands.

In North America, Greenland.

Sect. XVII. SCANDINAVIA (Sweden and Norway).

338. EXTENT. Norway and Sweden form the largest kingdom in Europe but Russia, being half as large again as France. But the population is small; not much larger than that of Ireland, though the country is nearly ten times as big.

339. BOUNDARIES. On the West and North, the North Sea; on the East, Russia, the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic; on the South, the Baltic, the Cattegat and the Skager Rack.

340. ATTACHED ISLANDS are very numerous, both on the outer coast and in the Baltic, but small and unimportant. Gothland is perhaps the best known.

341. HEADLANDS. (1) The North Cape, the most northernly point in Europe.

(2) The Naze, at the southernmost point of Norway. 342. GULFS AND BAYS. (1) The Baltic. (2) The Gulf of Bothnia.

343. STRAITS. (1) The Skager Rack. (2) The Cattegat. (3) The Sound, less than three miles across.

344. CLIMATE. The southernmost point of Sweden we see to be in the same latitude nearly as Edinburgh. The climate of the south of Sweden is therefore much that of the centre of Scotland. But north of Stockholm very little wheat can be grown. This is the reason that the population of Sweden and Norway is so small, and consequently their influence in European politics not great.

We observe that the northern part of Sweden and Norway is within the Arctic Circle. Here the climate is Arctic; the sun does not rise at all on the 21st December anywhere within the Arctic Circle; and the snow remains frozen for months.

The coast of Norway is less cold than corresponding latitudes in Sweden, inasmuch as the Gulf Stream reaches it, or at least the warm moist south-west wind.

345. MOUNTAINS AND PLAINS. The great Dovrefeld range covers the south of Norway with its ramifications, and forms the boundary northwards between Sweden and Norway. In the southern portion the Dovrefeld is 4,000— 8,000 feet high, but gets continually lower in the north of Norway till the mountains sink to 1,000-1,500 feet high.

The shoulders of the Dovrefeld spread out westward to the ocean, forming the numerous fiords or salt-water lochs, so that nearly the whole of Norway is a mountainous

country; but the mountains sink rapidly eastwards, so that a great part of Sweden next the Baltic is very flat, and may be reckoned as included in the great northern plain of Europe.

346. RIVERS. Numerous, but the names little celebrated. 347. LAKES. (1) Wener, and (2) Wetter, are two of the largest lakes in Europe. They belong to the Arctic class, with low shores. Sweden abounds in smaller lakes of this kind.

348. COMMUNICATIONS. Sweden possesses valuable canal and lake communications: and in the southern part (including the south-east corner of Norway) a network of railways has been completed.

A main line runs from Stockholm to Carlstad on Lake Wener and thence to Christiana. Another main line runs from Stockholm to Jonkoping on Lake Wetter, and thence to Malmo opposite Copenhagen, with a branch to Helsingborg at the Sound. From Jonkoping a line runs west to Gothenburg.

349. RACES OF MEN. The Swedes and Norwegians are Teutons of the Northern or Scandinavian branch, very nearly the same as the Danes and closely allied to the English.

There are in the north of Sweden and Norway a few Lapps and Finns, who are not Aryans at all. The Lapps, a small people with round heads, are possibly connected with the Esquimaux. These Lapps are supposed to be the relics of the ancient inhabitants of Europe, who were driven up into its remote corners by the great Aryan immigration.

350. HISTORIC SKETCH. Under Denmark it has been mentioned that in 1397, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark all came under one sovereign, and that in A.D. 1523 Sweden separated herself. In the thirty years' war Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant Hero, the Lion of the North, advanced with his Swedes into the heart of Germany and, at the peace of Westphalia, Sweden obtained a territory in what is now Prussia. In 1700 under Charles XII. Sweden possessed Finland, part of Livonia, and gave the law to Poland. But by A.D. 1720 Sweden had lost most of the