Almost all the greater and really important extremities of the continent lie outside of the triangle above indicated; and this method of treatment only serves to call attention to the great central mass, which would otherwise be in danger of being overlooked, in view of the immense value and influence of the countries on the coast and beyond the triangular line of demarkation. It needs but a glance to see how the projecting shores have marred all the theoretical precision of such a line. The coast-line shows itself directly subject to almost boundless diversity. Toward the west the independence of each peninsula increases, the more evidently and prominently according to its distance from Asia. Not articulated on two sides alone, like Asia, the east and south, but on all three of its sides exposed to the ocean, the broken coast-line is universal in Europe,—even toward the colder north, where its peninsulas and adjacent islands almost inclose two seas, the North and the Baltic. The advantage which this gives to Europe over Asia in respect to the development of its more northern regions, is very great and evident. We will enumerate the leading peninsulas of Europe: Kola, on the White Sea, between Lake Enara, the Varanger Fiord, and the Bay of Kandalaska, pointing westward. Scandinavia, embracing Norway and Sweden, with an area of more than 350,000 square miles, a tenth of all Europe, connected with the main land by the isthmus of Finland, but otherwise girded in a great bow by the Atlantic, the North Sea, the Baltic, and the Gulf of Bothnia, and pointing southward. Jutland or Denmark, beginning at the Elbe and the Trave and running north, embracing about ¹⁄₁₆₀ of Europe, between the North Sea and the Baltic, low and flat. The subdivided peninsula of Holland, between the Rhine and the Ems, a flat plain, looking to the north. The peninsula of Normandy and Brittany, between the Seine and the Loire, a rocky granite formation, jutting out into the Atlantic and faced by bold precipices. Spain and Portugal, embracing about 220,000 square miles, about ¹⁄₁₆ of Europe, rhomboidal in shape, almost insular in position, turned southwesterly, its surface a series of constantly rising terraces. Italy, embracing ¹⁄₃₅ of Europe, between the Alps and Sicily, and traversed by a mountain range. Turkey and Greece, or summing it more strictly under one word, the Grecian peninsula, between the Danube and the Morea, a most minutely divided region of plateaus and mountain chains; in truth, the most articulated peninsula in the world, and embracing ¹⁄₁₅ of Europe. The Crimea, a rhomboidal peninsula, turned to the south—its northern half a flat steppe, its southern a high plateau—the only peninsula of southeastern Europe projecting into the Black Sea.