Alike in Europe and in Asia, the southern or peninsular part of the continent is cut off from the central mass by a mountain chain, which in Europe is nearly unbroken. ♦The peninsulas of Europe and Asia.♦ Thus the southern part of Europe consists of the three great peninsulas of _Spain_, _Italy_, and what we may, in a wide sense, call _Greece_. These answer in some sort to the three great Oceanic peninsulas of Asia, those of _Arabia_, _India_, and _India_ beyond the _Ganges_. But the part of Asia which has historically had most to do with Europe is its Mediterranean peninsula, the land known as _Asia Minor_. In the northern part of each continent we find another system of great gulfs or inland seas; but those in Asia have been hindered by the cold from ever being of any importance, while in Europe the Baltic sea and the gulfs which run out of it may be looked on as forming a kind of secondary Mediterranean. We may thus say that Europe consists of two insular and peninsular regions, north and south, with a great unbroken mass of land between them. But there are some parts of Europe which seem as it were connecting links between the three main divisions of the continent. Thus we said that the three great peninsulas are cut off from the central mass by a nearly unbroken mountain chain. But the connexion of the central peninsula, that of Italy, with the eastern one or Greece, is far closer than its connexion with the western one, or Spain. Italy and Spain are much further apart than Italy and Greece, and between the Alps and the Pyrenees the mountain chain is nearly lost. We might almost say that a piece of central Europe breaks through at this point and comes down to the Mediterranean. This is the south-eastern part of Gaul; and Gaul may in this way be looked on as a land which joins together the central and the southern parts of Europe. But this is not all; in the north-western corner of Europe lies that great group of islands, two large ones and many small, of which our own Britain is the greatest. The British islands are closely connected in their geography and history with Gaul on one side, and with the islands and peninsulas of the North on the other. In this way we may say that all the three divisions of Europe are brought closely together on the western side of the continent, and that the lands of Gaul and Britain are the connecting links which bind them together. § 2. _Effect of Geography on History._ ♦Beginning of history in the European peninsulas.♦