the other boundary of Central Europe. Unquestionably
France has a certain share in the heart of the continent.
Yet it must not be entirely included. Two great distinc-
tions mark it off. France enjoys contact with the ex-
panse of the open ocean, as well as unimpeded freedom
of communication between the Atlantic and the Mediter-
ranean; and only on the eastern boundary of France do
the characteristic mountain formations of Central Europe
appear in force.

The most conspicuous feature of the configuration is
the development of the great Alpine system. It is by
the Alps, the Illyrian chains, the Carpathians, and the Bal-
kans that the divisions of Europe are fixed, its coun-
tries held asunder, and their ethnological and political
independence assured. By them, in particular, the
Mediterranean and the two peninsulas which were the
favoured scenes of ancient culture are cut off from
Central Europe. The mighty mountain barrier, from the
western foot of the Alps to the eastern extremity of the
Balkans, is the basis of Central Europe. Within its
domain must certainly be included the northern slope of
the Alps and Carpathians, as far as the waters flow from
these heights. The Romans reckoned the Rhine and the
Vistula as the boundaries of Germany. These frontiers
may have corresponded fairly well with the ethnography
of that period, but they will not suffice for the physical
geographer: he must rest his boundaries upon features
of more permanence.

The tract of country lying between the Alpine ridges
and the northern seas possesses no natural unity. It
falls into two bands, of which the southern, that of
the inferior mountain - chains, stretches over from
France, and the northern, that of the lowlands, from
Russia. The threefold belt of Alps, inferior chains,
and northern lowlands, controls the landscape and
scenery of Central Europe. Wherever one of these
elements dies out, Central Europe comes to an end. Its
most westerly point is therefore marked by the western
end of the great lowland at Dunkerque, and the land-

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