This amount of insular territory has given Europe a great diversity of relations, and has contributed much to its ethnographical character. Imagine only England and her whole group struck out of existence. What impoverishment it would bring! The Danish peninsula, without the adjacent islands of Funen and Zealand, were a mere tongue of sand. Without Sicily to furnish grain, Rome’s history had been entirely different from what it was. What a change it would have made in the development of Italy and Greece, had the Cyclades and Crete not served as a bridge, over which the civilization of Hither Asia might pass! Yet these islands, with their inhabitants, do not stand in necessary dependence on the contiguous main land; they have often in themselves the conditions of independent growth and prosperity. And yet the geological qualities and general features of islands may agree very closely with those of the land hard by; as is the case with the British, Danish, Italian, and Grecian groups. Southern England is a continuation of northern France, Picardy, and the Netherlands, as the geology of these districts shows. Sicily is a continuation of the volcanic soil of Calabria, and Candia of the Morea. Hence the possibility, despite the separation of islands from the main land, of a close connection in the habits, manners, and culture of the people, thus separated, depending as they do on a common soil, and having the same industries in common. It would be entirely different in Great Britain, for example, if the south end of England were geologically formed like the north end of Scotland. Instead of harmony there would be repulsion, and that mutual interchange of relations would not exist which has so powerful an influence on the whole course of European history. The remarkable number of islands on the coast of Europe, and their significance and value, formerly escaped attention; or rather their influence on the development of that continent, in comparison with others, was not made a matter of study.