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Physical Geography: Sweden

MINERALS.-Europe is rich in coal, iron, copper, lead, and salt, but deficient in the precious metals. The richest coal fields are those of Great Britain, after which come Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, and Hungary. Sweden produces the best iron; Great Britain much the largest quantity of the same metal; while Bavaria, Styria, the Pyrenees, the Carpathians, and the Hartz Mountains are important centres of iron mining. Copper is found in England, Hungary, Saxony, Bohemia, Sweden, and the Ural Mountains; tin in Cornwall, England, and the Hartz Mountains. Gold and silver are widely diffused, but are only mined successfully in the Ural and the Carpathians. Zinc, cobalt, mercury, antimony, manganese, and other metals, are found in various countries, but the productive area is limited. The salt mines of Austria and England and the numerous saline springs of the continent yield vast quantities of this useful mineral.

RACES OF MEN. - In no division of the earth have the different families or races of men been so widely scattered or so greatly intermixed as in Europe. In the N.-W. the Scandinavians occupy Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; the Anglo-Saxons, England and the Scottish lowlands; and the Celts, Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, and Wales. Central Europe is given up to the Teutonic peoples of Germany and Austria; France, Spain, and Italy, to the Latin or Romanic races. The Scla- The Sclavonic races occupy Russia, Poland, Croatia, Dalmatia, and the Danubian Provinces and are equal in number to the Teutons, and little inferior to the Latins. The Caucasians of the Caucassian Provinces, the Lithuanians, Basques, Albanians, and other minor nationalities, make up the vast bulk of the European peoples of Indo-European descent, which number 280,000,000, or fourteen-fifteenths of the entire population. The Semitic family is represented by 4,500,000 Jews and a few Arabs; and the 14,000,000 of Mongolian descent include 5,000,000 Magyars, 3,000,000 Turks, 4,700,000 Finns, and a number of scattered tribes (Samoyeds and others), mostly distributed through Southern Russia.

RELIGIONS.-Christianity is the dominant religion in Europe, one or other form of that belief being professed by all its inhabitants with the exception of some I2 that belief being professed by all its inhabitants with the exception of some 12 or 15 millions. Speaking roughly, the Teutonic races may be defined as Protestants, the Latins as Roman Catholics, and the Sclavic races as members of the Greek Church.

There are 5,000,000 Mohammedans in Turkey and South Russia; 5,000,000 Hebrews scattered throughout the continent; 1,000,000 Pagans in Finland and Northern Russia, and a few Buddhists in the southern part of Russia.