of the Suez Canal, the eastward voyage has still been round a promontory, though with the point at Singapore instead of Cape Town.
This fact and its vastness have made men think of the Continent as though it differed from other islands in more than size. We speak of its parts as Europe, Asia, and Africa in precisely the same way that we speak of the parts of the ocean as Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian. In theory even the ancient Greeks regarded it as insular, yet they spoke of it as the 'World.' The school-children of to-day are taught of it as the 'Old World,' in contrast with a certain pair of peninsulas which together constitute the 'New World.' Seamen speak of it merely as 'the Continent,' the continuous land.
Let us consider for a moment the proportions and relations of this newly realised Great Island.[1] It is set as it were on the shoulder of the earth with reference to the North Pole. Measuring from Pole to Pole along the central meridian of Asia, we have first a thousand miles of ice-clad sea as far as the northern shore of Siberia, then five thousand miles of land to
- ↑ It would be misleading to attempt to represent the statements which follow in map form. They can only be appreciated on a globe. Therefore they are illustrated by diagrams; see Figs. 12 and 13.
