A Sketch of Modern Geography Author:Samuel Butler Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Divisions of the Globe—General Description of Europe — England and Wales—Scotland—Ireland—France—Spain and Portugal— Switzerland—Belgium—Holland—... more »Germany—Denmark—Prussia— Austrian Empire—Italy—Sweden and Norway—Russia—Roumania —Turkey—Greece. The World is divided into two Hemispheres. The right, or Eastern Hemisphere, contains the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, commonly called the Old "World, as having been known to the ancients. The left, or Western Hemisphere, contains the two continents of North and South America, called the New World, as having been only discovered by Columbus in the year 1492. We still speak in common language of the four quarters of the World — viz. Europe, Asia, Africa, and America ; but geographers divide it into six, or rather seven, portions, Europe, Asia, Africa, the two Americas, Australasia,—containing Australia and the adjacent islands, and Polynesia (from -rrovs and vfjros), comprising the numerous islands in the Pacific Ocean. EUROPE. The smallest, and at the same time the most highly civilised division of the globe, is Europe. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the west by the Atlantic, on the south by the Mediterranean, which separates it from Africa, and on the east it is divided from M.G. Plates I. to XVIII. Asia by a line drawn through the Archipelago, the Black Sea, and the ridge of Caucasus, to the Caspian, and thence along the river Ural and the Ural Mountains to the North Sea under Nova Zembla. The coast outline is very irregular. In the north, the White Sea forms a large gulf, opening into the Arctic Ocean, but it is closed by ice for about seven months in the year. In the West, the North Sea, or German Ocean, is nearly enclosed by the British Islands, Belgium, Holland, and ...« less