The Results of the above Considerations briefly stated.

It will be seen, from what has now been said, that, with an area three times less than that of Africa, Europe (including its adjacent islands) has a coast-line twice as extended. Without the islands, it is 25,380 miles in length, or the circumference of the earth. The coast-line of Africa extends 17,860 miles; that of Asia 32,900.

The exceedingly varying areas of the continents may now be passed in very speedy review. Europe is but a fifth as large as Asia. It is somewhat more than a quarter as large as Africa; it is almost of the same size with Australia. In relation to America, it stands between Asia and Africa; it makes about ¹⁄₁₅ of all the continents, and about ¹⁄₂₀ of all the land surface of the globe; but it is not absolute size, but relative, which determines the importance of a continent; and this twentieth part of all the land on the globe has had paramount influence over all the rest within the past few centuries. The ethnographical character of its population has had great weight in securing this result, and other reasons will doubtless be more apparent in the future.

One of the most important features in the study of the relative importance of the continents is the comparative relation of the main trunk, articulation, and island system to each other. The following table presents this relation as it exists in the Old World:—

Africa:trunk1,extremities0,islands¹⁄₅₀
Asia:”4,”1,”⅛
Europe:”2,”1,”¹⁄₂₀

These are but approximations to the exact mathematical statement; but they serve to indicate comprehensively this important fact. No exact canon now exists for the perfect expression of the relations of the continents to each other, and their physical superiority and inferiority, and its lack is no less felt than it has been in art to express the comparative importance of the organs of the human body in giving a representation of man.