Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Page 11

THE BALANCE OF WORLD ECONOMY
By Arnold Fraenkel,
former Member of the Danish Parliament.
~^T i T E are in the habit of calling Europe a continent. But
^A/ if we look at the map of the world we realise at once
t t that Europe is geographically attached to Asia and
that the two together really form one vast continent stretching
from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the
east. There is no clear geographical frontier dividing the two con-
tinents, for the Ural Mountains are but a low chain which does
not at any point rise above the snow line and whose highest al-
titude is only about one third of that of Mont Blanc, 5 000 ft. com-
pared with 15000 ft. And from the southern extremity of the Ural
Mountains to the Caspian Sea a plain extends over a distance of
several hundred kilometres; this vast steppe is known as the Ural
Gate through which the tribes have wandered from Asia into Eu-
rope for thousands of years. This is believed to have been the road
taken by our remote ancestors, and therefore we speak of Indo-
Europeans as Aryans. There is, however, no reason to attach too
much importance to racial theories, for in the course of time so
much intermingling has taken place that it is probably extremely
difficult to find a European of pure race. Anthropological re-
search has proved that the population of Europe is derived from
at least three races which have been interbred.1)
The surface area of Asia is about four times that of Europe,
so if we take a purely geographical view of the position we may
regard Europe as simply an appendix to Asia, its west coast or
waterfront. Modern geographers therefore describe this vast mass
of land by a common term: Eurasia.
More than half the human race (about 1180 millions) lives in
Asia, and as it is four times as great as Europe, the population
of Europe should be about a quarter of that number or about
295 millions, provided the population was evenly distributed.
But the actual figure is nearly twice as big, viz: 530 millions,
in spite of the fact that Asia seems to be much better equipped
Martin Vahl & Gudmund Hatt: Jorden og Menneskelivet, Geografisk
Haandbog (The Earth and Human Life, Manual of Geography), IV p. 10.
Copenhagen 1927.