The Mediterranean Sea and adjoining Lands.
Geographical Sketch by the late Prof. Theobald Fischer.
The shores of the Mediterranean, formerly visited in part only and imperfectly known, now most deservedly attract, throughout their whole extent, an ever increasing number of travellers and explorers. No part of the earth’s surface can offer so marvellous an intellectual feast. Land where he may, the traveller is almost invariably struck with the beauty of the scenery, the richness of the vegetation, and the wealth of historical memories. For three thousand years the Mediterranean was the theatre of all history, the cradle of all culture, to which the whole of humanity more or less directly owes its modern civilization. It was here for the first time that the nearness of the opposite coasts and the numerous island stepping-stones, coupled with winds blowing gently for months at a time, deprived the sea of its terrors and gave birth to a hardy race of mariners. The stagnation of the continental peoples was thus powerfully stirred and their ignorance gradually dispelled. It was first in Egypt, and then above all in Greece and in Italy, that those mighty intellectual weapons were forged which were to conquer the whole earth, while from Palestine came the mightiest of all religious and moral influences. The Mediterranean was the school of almost all the mediæval geographers and navigators, such as Toscanelli, Columbus, Vespucci, the Gabotti (the ‘Cabots’ employed by Henry VII.), and others, who added a New World to the old, and who brought Europe into touch with the great Asiatic cradles of culture. The Italians were the first to educate the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even English mariners, and to introduce them to that Ocean which was to become the world’s commercial and intellectual highway.
The ancient Romans were fully aware, from a very early period, that they could maintain their empire on land only by securing their supremacy at sea also. Favoured by the central situation of Italy, they gradually subjected the whole of the Mediterranean lands to their sway, thus imparting to them a certain social and political unity. The name of ‘sea in the middle of the land’, though of late-Roman origin, still suggests the idea that both sea and land belonged to Rome. But this unity was afterwards destroyed by the repeated incursions of Germanic tribes from the north, followed by Arabs and Turks from the south and east. Owing to the discovery of the great ocean highways the Mediterranean was almost entirely neglected in the 16–19th centuries, but since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 it has become one of the world’s most important arteries of traffic. The establishment of the French in Algeria (1830) and Tunisia (1881) and that of the British in Egypt (1884) have still more effectually reunited Europe and Africa and promoted the progress of civilization and commerce. With Asia also Europe has been brought into closer touch since the Crimean war of 1854–6, when the Black Sea was opened up, and new avenues to the Orient were thus rendered available. While nominally belonging to three different quarters of the globe, the Mediterranean with its shores, being bounded on the north by a long wall of high mountains and on the south by a vast and even more impenetrable expanse of desert, possesses quite a unique individuality of its own.
Geologically considered the Mediterranean forms part of an immense depression girdling the whole of the earth’s crust and separating the northern from the southern parts. This depression probably existed during the earlier geological periods, but in its depths has not yet assumed a settled character, as is evidenced by frequent earthquakes, mostly tectonic, and by continuous volcanic activity. This great depression is believed by geologists to have extended in the mesozoic period into Central Asia, far beyond the limits of the present Mediterranean, forming an immense sea to which the name of Tethys has been given. In its depths were deposited those strata, chiefly calcareous and argillaceous, which were afterwards raised and converted into dry land by means of the centripetal motion of the earlier masses of rock and by lateral pressure. In proof of this it may be noted that some two-thirds of Italy and four-fifths of Sicily consist of subaqueous formations of the tertiary or even a later period.
In the midst of this vast ‘Eurasian’ (European-Asiatic) region of folded rock formation, some 930 miles in length, bounded on the north by the solid primæval rocks of the continent of Europe, and on the south by the great plateau of the desert, lies the Chief Basin of the Mediterranean, embracing the Adriatic and the Greek Archipelago, where the highly indented coast and the numerous islands and peninsulas display a most striking variety of picturesque scenery. On the other hand the smaller part of the sea, lying to the south of a line drawn from the Lesser Syrtis, past the south coasts of Crete and Cyprus, to North Syria, has been formed by encroachment on the plateau of the desert (p. xxxiii), and is almost entirely destitute of attraction. In the geological history of the Mediterranean it is important to note also that three great rock-masses of the earliest periods still survive. These are the Iberian mass to the west, once probably connected with the kindred rocks of the Atlas in Morocco; then the Tyrrhenian mass, in the centre, and the Rumelian to the east. These three belong to the archæan and palæozoic periods. Once towering to Alpine peaks, they were gradually undermined by the action of the waves and by the subsidence of the land. Their bases were thus partly covered with their débris, built up in new formations. By later movements of the earth’s crust, however, these shapeless primæval masses were again broken up, and by the pressure and counter-pressure of the fragments were piled up anew into smaller mountain-ranges of considerable height. Thus from the Iberian primæval rock sprang up, in the Castilian range (Sierra de Gredos), peaks to a height of nearly 9000 feet; in the Rhodope of Rumelia rise similar peaks to nearly 10,000 feet high; and even amid the ruins of the Tyrrhenis (p. xxxi) still towers the granitic Monte Cinto in Corsica to a height of 8900 feet.
Around these great primæval masses, deeply rooted in the earth’s crust, were gradually built up the recent folded mountains, out of materials forced aside and upwards by the débris of earlier rock as it sank into the sea. Thus on the Iberian Pedestal, from the north side, out of the depths of the great Biscay abyss, arose the Pyrenaean-Cantabrian Folded Chain (culminating in the Aneto or Maladetta, 11,168 ft.), the fan-like structure of which has been due to lateral pressure coming from the Ebro depression also. By similar pressure from the south side the Andalusian Folded Mountains were piled up against the Iberian nucleus (Meseta Mts.), and, though only 23 miles distant from the Mediterranean, they tower in the Mulhacén of the Sierra Nevada to a height of 11,424 feet, the greatest altitude in Europe apart from the Alps. As the Pyrenees are fringed on the east, on the frontier of Spain and France (near Port Vendres), with a deeply indented coast, so too the Andalusian range is strongly marked by transverse fissures, the eastmost of which have severed the Balearic Islands from the mainland. Still more striking is the great westmost fissure or cleavage, where the girdle of mountains takes a sharp turn from west to east, where the action of tides and waves has hollowed out the Straits of Gibraltar, and has further widened them within the historic period. The Mediterranean is here separated from the Atlantic by a submarine bar or threshold, at a depth averaging only 650 feet, extending from Cape Trafalgar to Cape Spartel, a distance of 27½ miles, and forming the boundary between the inner Alboran basin or depression and the outer or Andalusian. Thus, on north and south alike the Iberian central bed-rock is bordered with lofty mountains, whose seaboard almost everywhere repels human traffic, and seems barred against Europe by the Pyrenees and against Africa by the mountains of Andalusia. On the east side, however, between the Pyrenees and Cabo de la Nao (p. [112]), the original rock-nucleus slopes gradually down to the Mediterranean. Still more important is the western slope down to the Atlantic, whose waves have penetrated into the lower estuaries of primæval rock on the coast, thus forming a number of excellent harbours, such as in particular that of Lisbon at the mouth of the Tagus. Towards the Atlantic descend also the plains of Lower Andalusia, the so-called Guadalquivir Basin, which lies between the Iberian central pedestal and the Andalusian sedimentary and contorted formations. In this basin lie Spain’s chief seaports for traffic with Africa and America, the island-harbour of Cadiz, the estuary-harbour of Huelva, the starting-point of Columbus, and the river-harbour of Seville, accessible to large vessels at high-tide.
In North-Western Africa the Andalusian contorted formation is continued by the Rîf Mts. of Morocco (p. [93]) and by the Tell Atlas (p. [169]), extending to the south and then turning eastwards. These ranges are characterized by deep fissures, formed by prehistoric volcanic action and descending abruptly to the Mediterranean. The whole northern coast of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, apart from numerous wave-worn beaches, is completely rock-bound, forbidding all approach. Even the artificial harbours like that of Algiers are maintained with difficulty. At the east end of this long stretch of coast comes at last the welcome haven offered by the Gulf of Tunis which runs inland at the mouth of the depression between the Tell Atlas and the Sahara Atlas (p. [320]), and on which the Medjerda and other streams and several important roads converge. Here, as in Lower Andalusia, a great avenue to the interior was thus opened up. This favoured spot therefore became a great focus of traffic, and as it lay on the Straits of Pantelleria (p. [396]) it was also of great political importance. The ancient Utica (p. [353]) was succeeded by the ‘new city’ of Carthage (p. [344]), the predecessors of the modern Tunis. From this base the Carthaginians, the Vandals, and the Moors ruled Sicily and Sardinia. With such a base as the admirable naval harbour of Bizerta, lately constructed by the French, they in turn may perhaps some day become masters of the Mediterranean.
The Straits of Pantellería, leading from the western to the eastern basin of the Mediterranean and separating the Atlas from the Apennines, have been formed, like those of Gibraltar and the narrow side-portal of Messina, by transverse cleavage. Owing to the subsidence of the flat offshoots of the Apennines and to the erosive action of the waves the straits have been gradually widened to about 90 miles. The Maltese Islands are fragments, now broken up by fissures, of what was once a tableland, but they too are being rapidly washed away by the action of the surf. On the other hand the island of Pantellería, which has given its name to the straits, rising to a height of 2743 ft. from the verge of the central abyss and 3900 ft. in depth, is of volcanic origin. These transverse fissures are indeed generally the scenes of volcanic action, and they are usually situated at points where the mountains of recent contorted formation take a sudden bend (as is notably the case in the lower valley of the Danube).
Italy forms an immense bridge across the trough of the Mediterranean, extending to Cape Bon in Tunisia. Like a lofty embankment, rising over 18,000 ft. from the bottom of the sea, Calabria, culminating in the Aspromonte (6424 ft. above sea-level), separates the Tyrrhenian Sea (12,000 ft. deep, though of recent formation) from the Ionian Sea. The latter is the deepest basin in the Mediterranean, attaining a depth of 14,500 feet. The Apennines, deviating in their southern course from the usual ‘Eurasian’ direction, were probably influenced by the primæval Tyrrhenis. This ancient nucleus of the Italian continent has been broken up by movements of the earth’s crust which began in the mesozoic period, were still more marked in the later tertiary period, and continue to this day. Some of the solid blocks, as in Tuscany, Calabria, and Sicily (the Monti Peloritani near Messina), have been incorporated in the later rock structure of the Apennines; others again rise as isolated masses from the abysses of the Tyrrhenian Sea, such as Corsica, Sardinia, and Elba. The lines of cleavage, especially between Cosenza and Palermo, were marked by great volcanic activity. In a curve, parallel with the abrupt ramparts of Calabria and Sicily, rise the volcanoes of the Lipari Islands (Stromboli) and Ustica in succession. To the north the series is continued by Vesuvius, the Epomeo, and the Ponza Islands near Naples, and by the Alban Mts. near Rome. All these lie on the inner declivity of the Apennines. To the south the series is continued by Mt. Ætna in Sicily, lying outside of the Apennines. In the quaternary period the new Apennine formations underwent an upheaval which imparted to the range its present orographical unity. The result was that the straits which once intersected Southern Italy, connecting the Tyrrhenian with the Ionian basin, were filled up, with the exception of those of Messina, while these last were narrowed to 2 miles and shoaled at the north end, where they are only 335 ft. deep. The intensity of the upheaval is evidenced by the fact that quaternary deposits cover the terraces of the Aspromonte in Calabria to a height of 3900 feet above the sea-level. That these movements of the earth’s crust still continue is proved by the variations of level in the Bay of Naples observed within historic times. The most striking instance of this is the great subsidence in the island of Capri which has taken place within the Christian era. In the Blue Grotto there we find remains of a flight of steps of the time of Tiberius, descending to the water, but the lowest step is now 19 feet below the surface.
Italy opens towards the west. On the west side lie its picturesque bays and islands, as well as most of its great centres of culture, Rome and Florence, Genoa and Naples, besides many others. But the east side also is important owing to its close connection with the south-eastern basin of the Mediterranean. The chief outlets in this direction are the lagoon-harbour of Venice, as great a portal of continental commerce in the middle ages as Genoa is at the present day, and the excellent harbours of Brindisi, Taranto, Messina, and Syracuse. Were geographical advantages alone decisive, Italy might again become mistress of the Mediterranean. Ethnographically also she is highly favoured. Her population, densest on the coasts, is about one-third of the scattered and heterogeneous hundred million inhabitants of the whole of the Mediterranean lands.
Almost all along the coast of the north-western basin of the Mediterranean the recent stratified and contorted headlands abut most picturesquely on the sea. On the north-west only, on each side of the Pyrenees, the basin is bounded by a coast of the primæval bed-rock formation, and is easily accessible from the Iberian mountains by the valleys of the Ebro, Jucar, and other rivers. Still more important are the avenues afforded by the Aquitanian Plains and the Rhone Valley. Hence it was that from a very early period the streams of Roman culture flowed through Marseilles and Narbonne to western and central Europe. But these, like the Straits of Gibraltar on the west, the Carso or Karst near Trieste on the north, and the Bosporus on the east, afford inlets also for the cold winds which sometimes pour into the warm mountain-girdled basin of the Mediterranean and force back the zone of southern vegetation (p. xxxv).
The southern margin of the north-western basin of the Mediterranean lies in the same latitude (36°) as the northern margin of the south-eastern basin (Cape Tænaron, on the south coast of Asia Minor). This less favoured south-eastern basin sends two great branches towards central Europe, the Adriatic and the Greek Archipelago, both of which open out in the direction of the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. From these branches run important roads leading to the heart of Europe, in particular those from Venice and Trieste into Austria, and that from Saloniki to Belgrade and up the Danube. This last, as also the road from Belgrade to Sofia, Adrianople, and Constantinople, traverses the Rumelian Primary Formation, to which the greater part of the south-eastern European peninsula belongs (Thrace and Macedonia, extending into Servia). To the same period probably once belonged also the north-western part of Asia Minor and Ægaeis, of which last the only surviving relics are the islands of the Cyclades. Here, too, over the primæval bed-rock, recent folded mountains have been gradually built up. The Balkan is one of these ranges. Another is the Illyrian-Greek Range, running in a different direction, which with its broad girdle gives the peninsula its southern trend, while shutting it off from the Adriatic and barring direct access to the north-west. As the Balearic Islands belong to the Andalusian stratified formation, and as Sicily and its adjoining islands form part of the Apennines, so the western stratified girdle of the south-eastern European peninsula crumbled, even within the historic period, into peninsulas and islands, formed chiefly by very recent subsidence. Thus arose Greece, a hill-country with an extensive seaboard, a new and unique region which was one day to reign supreme in the intellectual world. It is probable that the Greek range of hills was once prolonged eastwards, as appears to be indicated by the lie of the Cretan mountains, and that these in their turn were connected with the similarly stratified Taurus Mountains in Asia Minor. Just as the south-eastern peninsula of Europe, with Asia Minor, thus formed the great stepping-stones of traffic which brought the ancient culture of Europe into contact with that of Mesopotamia and Syria, so when the railway from Constantinople to Bagdad is completed a great future may yet be in store for the Orient.
The Eastern Mediterranean, the smaller south-eastern basin to the south of Malta, Crete, and Cyprus (p. xxviii), lies within the region of the great primæval desert-plateau of northern Africa (apart from the Atlas regions), of Arabia, and Syria, and has been formed by the subsidence of part of that plateau. In contrast to the richly varied shores of the western and central basins its coasts, as may even be seen from a glance at the map, are monotonous. Their formation, whether perpendicular or horizontal, is featureless, and there is an almost entire lack of islands, harbours, and rivers. The Nile greatly relieves this monotony, but its sources lie within tropical regions far beyond the limits of the desert. Alexandria possesses almost the only natural harbour on this flat coast of early formation. The old-world characteristics of the land, its inhabitants, and their language at once strike the traveller on landing at Tripoli. Yet even this part of the Mediterranean, especially the Levant Basin, beyond the passage between Crete and Barca, contains recent formations. The hill-region of Barca, the ancient Cyrenaica (p. [413]), averaging 1600 feet in height, is composed of miocene marine strata. The bay now filled up by the Nile delta, and at one time connected with the Red Sea, is of even later origin, dating perhaps from the pluvial or glacial era. That the mouth of the Nile once lay much farther to the north and watered Palestine is evidenced by the identity of its fauna with that of the Jordan and the Lake of Tiberias (crocodiles, for instance, occurring in the Nahr ez-Zerkâ, to the south of Mt. Carmel; p. [468]). Movements of the earth’s crust also account for the peculiar conformation of that part of the great desert-plateau which we call Syria. It is only differentiated from the monotonous North Arabian desert by the great Syrian Valley or trough, running from north to south, and ending at the Gulf of Akaba in the Erythræan depression (the Red Sea), which dates from about the same epoch. On each side of this long narrow furrow, descending to a depth of some 2500 feet below the sea-level, strips of land have been forced upwards so as to form lofty mountains. These, in spite of subsidences and erosion, still attain a height of about 10,000 feet in the twin-giants of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon in Central Syria. It is to this highly picturesque mountain-wall, which condenses the vapours from the sea and remains snow-clad till late in summer, that the Syrian seaboard, 10–16 miles in breadth, owes its luxuriant subtropical vegetation, and Palestine its cultivability as far as its southern borders. Syria, which may be regarded geographically and anthropologically as a kind of peninsula of the Mediterranean, thus forms a bridge between north and south, connecting Asia Minor and Mesopotamia with Arabia and Egypt, and bounded by the sea on the west and by the desert, only some 60 miles distant, on the east.
The Black Sea, which from the north-eastern angle of the Archipelago runs far into the interior of the Old World, lies outside of the Mediterranean regions. Like the inland Caspian Sea it is a relic of the tertiary Sarmatic Sea, which was afterwards broken up into lakes of brackish water. It was not till the diluvial epoch that those subsidences which created the Sea of Marmora brought the Black Sea also into connection with the Mediterranean. Through the Sea of Marmora there must once have flowed a great river, into whose valley the sea afterwards penetrated from the south, forming the Dardanelles and the Bosporus of the present day. Travellers on the Rhine will observe an interesting resemblance between these straits and the Rhine Valley between Bingen and Coblenz. Like these straits the Black Sea also is a great trough hollowed out between lofty stratified mountains. On three sides its bold rocky coasts are inhospitable and forbidding. On the north it is bounded by the ‘steppe’, a plateau of primitive formation, no less monotonous than the desert-plateau on the south side of the Mediterranean, yet cultivable owing to its more northern situation. At two places on this side, through gaps in the mountain rampart, the sea has overflowed the plateau, forming the shallow Gulf of Odessa and Sea of Azov. Two great routes of traffic were thus opened up from the Black Sea into the heart of Eastern Europe and even of Central Asia, enriching the world’s commerce with the products of these regions, and at the same time forming the portal through which Byzantine culture and Greek Christianity found their way into Russia. Through these passages great masses of cold northern air are poured into the Black Sea; but between them the Peninsula of the Crimea, a relic of the broken-down mountain-girdle, still stands boldly forth, giving shelter to an almost Mediterranean vegetation on its southern coast. On that coast lies the admirable harbour of Sebastopol. Nearer the Sea of Azov once lay the flourishing Greek colonies of Pantikapaeon and Phanagoria, and in the middle ages the Genoese settlements of Sudak (Kertch) and Kaffa (Theodosia or Feodossiya). As the corn of Southern Russia is now the chief export from Odessa to London and Antwerp, so, from the 14th century onwards, quantities of Russian caviare were brought by Italian merchants from Kaffa to Bruges, which was then one of the world’s greatest markets.
The Climate of the Mediterranean is very equable. In every age northerners have been attracted by the mildness of the winters, when the occasional storms and heavy rains are of short duration and are soon succeeded by bright sunshine. The heat of summer is tempered everywhere, especially on the more southern coasts, by refreshing sea-breezes. The farther south one goes, the longer the dry season lasts. At Tripoli, for example, it lasts for seven months and at Alexandria for ten. The subtropical maximum air-pressure over the eastern Atlantic, by which rainfall and wind-movements are determined, is usually continued in winter past the southern limit of the Mediterranean (comp. p. [29]), thus bringing the whole of that sea within the zone of the changeable and rainy winds of Central Europe. In summer the pressure lies farther to the north, producing in most parts of the Mediterranean steady northerly currents of air. The climate is tempered also by the warmth of the sea itself. The bar at the west entrance of the Straits of Gibraltar (p. xxix) keeps out the cold water of the deep Atlantic, but allows the influx of the warmer surface-water to compensate for what the Mediterranean loses by evaporation. This loss would otherwise amount to a depth of 10–15 ft. per annum. The influx of water from the Atlantic causes a current to flow along the North African coast from west to east, but its thermal effects are soon lost. In summer the surface of the Mediterranean is heated by the sun up to 75–82° Fahr.; but the temperature diminishes rapidly down to a depth of about 1000 feet, where it reaches a uniform minimum corresponding with the surface temperature of February, the coolest month in the year. This in the north-western basin is 55° Fahr. only, and in the south-eastern 56¼°, but it suffices to temper the cold winds of winter, while additional warmth is brought from time to time by the hot sirocco from the interior of Africa (comp. p. [321]). It may be stated generally that the winter temperature on the Mediterranean averages 14° Fahr. above that of almost all other regions in the same latitude. The warmest places are of course those on the coasts facing the south and sheltered from the north, while the average temperature rises gradually from south-east to north-west.
The Vegetation is rich and varied. Evergreens abound, being better able to stand the long droughts than deciduous trees and shrubs. Among the forest-trees in the warmer regions the commonest are pines, including stone-pines, and oaks of the evergreen and other varieties. The underwood (macchia, maquis, or garrigue, Grk. phrýgana) is composed of mastic-bushes (Pistacia lentiscus), myrtles, arbutus-trees (Arbutus unĕdo), broom, tree-like heaths (Erica arborea and scoparia), resinous and aromatic cistus-shrubs with large blossoms resembling wild roses, and climbing-plants of many varieties. Most prominent among trees in the cultivated lands is the silver-grey olive, which, as well as the vine and the fig-tree, has thriven here from the earliest times and is the most characteristic feature in every Mediterranean landscape. Most of the other fruit-trees also have been known here since remote antiquity. The fruit of the date-palm attains perfection in the oases of North Africa only (comp. p. [171]), but the tree bears fruit on the Spanish coast, and is very popular as an ornamental tree on the French and Italian Riviera and in other sheltered situations. Lemons were introduced by the Arabs, and oranges were brought from southern China by the Portuguese about the middle of the 16th century. Many other foreign trees and plants have been introduced since then. Aloes and opuntias, which now grow wild and are often regarded as characteristic of the Mediterranean, were introduced from America. In the beautiful and luxuriant gardens, especially in Italy, on the French Riviera, and in Algeria, the flora of almost every quarter of the globe is represented.
No less varied and interesting are the Inhabitants of the Mediterranean lands, who belong to three distinct continents, and who differ widely in race and language, in religion and culture. In remote mountain-regions there still exist peoples, like the Basques and the Albanians, who belong to the oldest races in Europe. In the south and the east dwell Arabs and Turks, comparatively recent immigrants from the steppes of Asia. On one side, as in Southern France, is witnessed the height of civilization; on the other, as in Albania and many parts of Northern Africa, the population is sunk in the depths of ignorance. The dwellers in the west profess the Roman Catholic faith, those in the east belong to the Greek Catholic church, while they differ materially in culture also. Christianity again is antagonistic to Islam, which prevails in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa. The inhabitants of the Atlas regions, of Tripolitania, and of Barca are Berbers (p. [94]), who are neither Arabs nor Turks, but are more akin to the Europeans. The Osman Turks of the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor have been so blended with Mediterranean races that they now retain little of their original Mongolian character. Entirely distinct again from the Arabs are the Aramaic Syrians, although they speak Arabic, and so too are the Fellahin of Egypt. Most mixed perhaps of all is the blood of the Modern Greeks.