Belgium The Loamy Upland

This region occupies the center of Belgium, and extends from the French border to the Meuse River. As in northern France, a widespread and fertile cover of loess makes this the best agricultural region of Belgium. The relief is rolling and in the west there are small hills, relics of former escarpments. Some of these became famous during the World War as strategic points for the defense or capture of which thousands of men were killed, as at Kemmelberg near Ypres. Fields of wheat, barley, oats, and sugar beets as well as orchards and vegetable gardens, surround the many villages.

The population is dense, and there are many towns which serve as centers of trade and culture, for example, the university city Leuven (French Louvain). But all roads on this upland lead to Belgium's great capital, Brussels. Because of circumstances that were largely political, this chief city of the Province of Brabant chanced to become the seat of government during a period of foreign domination, and gradually overshadowed the Flemish cities.

Having become the capital of Belgium in 1830, it continues to be the most important city, the very heart of Belgium. Essentially French in culture in spite of its location north of the language boundary, it resembles Paris in many respects. Industrial development has followed on political importance, but there is little specialization. The Willebroeck Canal connects Brussels with the Schelde, and small seagoing vessels can reach the city.

In the southern part of the upland along the Sambre-Meuse River, which follows the soft coal layers at the foot of the Ardennes, a great manufacturing development entirely overshadows agriculture, and from the French border up to Liege the landscape is dominated by factories. Coal has been the basic factor in this industrial development. The coal syncline crosses the country from France to Germany, forming the Sambre-Meuse depression. Exploitation is not always easy, for the coal seams are thin, the geological structure is in some places very complicated, and the quality of the coal is not the best. Superior resources are found in the Campine at greater depth, but exploitation is here still in its infancy. For the iron industry foreign coal of suitable quality has to be imported in large quantities, a disadvantage which is partly offset by the export of coal from Belgian mines.

The mining of iron ore, which was once important, is now insignificant in comparison with the large import of that commodity from French Lorraine. The southeastern corner of Belgium has a small share of the great Lorraine iron-ore deposits, but the neighboring mines of Luxembourg are of greater importance. Their value is enhanced by the nearness of the German coalfields which have given rise to a number of smelters. The pig iron here produced is mostly exported. Zinc, also, used to be exploited near the German border, but is now imported as ore from foreign countries.

The Sambre-Meuse industrial zone can be subdivided into three sections. The western section--the Borinage--around Mons is essentially a coalmining region. The next district, that of Charleroi, in connection with its coal output has developed metal works, machine factories, chemical industries, and the manufacture of glass which is a Belgian specialty. In both sections industries are more scattered and are carried on in smaller towns than in England. Even Mons and Charleroi are comparatively small. This industrial development continues along the Meuse River to the third section, with the old town of Namur at the confluence of the Sambre and the Meuse as one of the centers. Only farther north, however, around Liége, does it again take on great significance. During the nineteenth century, the ancient city of Liége became the center of a great industrial region, with the usual iron works and machine factories as well as zinc smelters and glass plants, notably those producing fine crystal.

The Paris Basin

In the center of these concentric rings the inner part of the Paris Basin forms a very shallow bowl-shaped depression. When its limestone, sand, and clay of Cretaceous and Tertiary age were uplifted, the edges were raised more than the center. Hence the youngest deposits lie at the center in the so-called Isle de France. Under the influence of erosion the different geologic layers have been converted into a series of concentric zones, especially on the east. Concentric escarpments, with their steep sides away from Paris represent the outcrops of hard rocks and form a natural defense against invaders from the east. The western rivers, such as the middle Loire and the Seine with its branches, run toward the center of the basin. it will be remembered, and then break their way westward. The eastern rivers, the Meuse and the Moselle, on the contrary, follow the escarpment and continue northward towards the Rhine and Holland. At two points in northwestern France local uplifts have brought older layers to the surface. The most northern of these is the continuation of the Weald in England.

The Paris Basin is the chief agricultural region of France. Here, as in Belgium, the limestone soils have a cover of rich loam, brought as loess by dry winds during the glacial period when the northern icesheet lay not far off. The rolling hills near Paris and to the northward are almost entirely used for wheat, oats, and sugar beets, except for a local development of truck gardens along some of the valleys and around Paris. Wheat is the most abundant crop, for relief, soil, and the moderately dry and rather sunny climate make this region well suited for that crop. Here are the best yields of France, and from here comes the greater part of the large French wheat production. So abundant is the crop that in good years the yield here and in the rest of France suffices for the needs of the whole country, even though France consumes more per capita than any other country. Bread is an essential part of every French meal. Oats replace wheat in the eastern part of the Paris Basin where the rainfall increases as a result of elevation. Sugar beets, in spite of yields much lower than those of the Netherlands and Belgium, suffice to supply France with sugar.

The border zone around the Paris Basin shows a type of agriculture different from that of the center. In the northwest intensive grazing once more prevails and dairy products predominate. This is partly a result of more rain and lower temperature, but soil and relief also play a part. Heavy soils are found in the coastal marshes of Flanders of which France has a small share, and the structural uplift or anticline mentioned above as a continuation of the English Weald causes higher altitude. East of Paris the escarpment region shows an especially pronounced zonal arrangement in accord with the geologic structure. Forests cover the sandstones, sheep graze on the dry limestones, and rye prevails as the main food crop except in the more fertile Moselle Valley where wheat once more predominates. But here another use of the land comes to the foreground, namely, the raising of grapes. The last border region is in the south. Here the Loire River as a zone of intense agriculture, vines, fruits, and vegetables, while the uplands, lacking the fertile loam cover of the north, are mainly under rye and buckwheat. The small section of extensive grazing in the bend of the Loire south of Orleans is the Sologne, a region of moors, void of population except for the shepherds.