Page 302 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

280 Strategic Features of the Gulf of

mouth of the river. The existence of the
smaller though important cities of the Gulf
coast— Mobile, Galveston, or the Mexican ports
— does not diminish, but rather emphasizes by
contrast, the importance of the Mississippi
entrance. They all share its fortunes, in that
all alike communicate with the outside world
through the Strait of Florida or the Yucatan
Channel.
In the Caribbean, likewise, the existence of
numerous important ports, and a busy traffic
in tropical produce grown within the region
itself, do but make more striking the predom-
inance in interest of that one position known
comprehensively, but up to the present some-
what indeterminately, as the Isthmus. Here
again the element of decisive value is the cross-
ing of the roads, the meeting of the ways,
which, whether imposed by nature itself, as in
the cases before us, or induced, as sometimes
happens, in a less degree, by simple human dis-
positions, are prime factors in mercantile or
strategic consequence. For these reasons the
Isthmus, even under the disadvantages of land
carriage and transshipment of goods, has ever
been an important link in the communications