Page 300 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

278 Strategic Features of the Gulf of

be considered. Its political importance will be
assumed, as recognized by our forefathers, and
enforced upon our own attention by the sud-
den apprehensions awakened within the last
two years.
It may be well, though possibly needless, to
ask readers to keep clearly in mind that the
Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, while
knit together like the Siamese twins, are dis-
tinct geographical entities. A leading British
periodical once accused the writer of calling
the Gulf of Mexico the Caribbean Sea, because
of his unwillingness to admit the name of any
other state in connection with a body of water
over which his own country claimed predom-
inance. The Gulf of Mexico is very clearly
defined by the projection, from the north, of
the peninsula of Florida, and from the south,
of that of Yucatan. Between the two the
island of Cuba interposes for a distance of two
hundred miles, leaving on one side a passage
of nearly a hundred miles wide — the Strait
of Florida— into the Atlantic, while on the
other, the Yucatan Channel, somewhat broader,
leads into the Caribbean Sea. It may be men-
tioned here, as an important military consider-