Here - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

30 THE WORLD OF LIFE
completely ice-clad during the glacial epoch, while much of
southern Britain was free. Germany is poorer than France,
partly on account of its severer continental climate, but also
owing to France possessing a greater variety of surface, owing
to its including a portion of the loftiest Alps in the south-east,
the isolated Pyrenees in the south, the Jura and Vosges
mountains on the north-east, and its central volcanic ranges,
together with its southern Mediterranean coast, and a very
extensive western and northern coast-line. It also has a
more diversified soil, owing to far less of its surface being
buried under glacial debris. Italy has still greater advan-
tages of a similar kind, and its slight superiority to France,
with less than half the area, is about what we should expect.
It well illustrates the fact, already ascertained, that difference
of area within moderate limits is of far less importance than
comparatively slight advantages in soil and climate.
Turning now to North America, the following figures
from the latest authorities have been supplied by my friend
Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell :
Effect of Latitude.