Page 293 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future
P. 293
rHE STRATEGIC FEATURES OF THE GULF
OF MEXICO AND THE CARIBBEAN SEA.
June, 1897.
HE importance, absolute and relative, of
X portions of the earth's surface, and their
consequent interest to mankind, vary from
time to time. The Mediterranean was for
many ages the centre round which gathered
all the influences and developments of those
earlier civilizations from which our own, medi-
ately or immediately, derives. During the cha-
otic period of struggle that intervened between
their fall and the dawn of our modern condi-
tions, the Inland Sea, through its hold upon
the traditions and culture of antiquity, still
retained a general ascendency, although at
length its political predominance was chal-
lenged, and finally overcome, by the younger,
more virile, and more warlike nationalities that
had been forming gradually beyond the Alps,
and on the shores of the Atlantic and North-
