Page 323 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. 301

mobile force, these represent control over the
northern entrances— the most important en-
trances— into the Caribbean Sea. No one of
this chain belongs to any of the Powers com-
monly reckoned as being of the first order of
strength.
The entrances on the north of the sea, as
far as, but not including, the Anegada Passage,
are called the most important, because they
are so few in number, — a circumstance which
always increases value ; because they are so
much nearer to the Isthmus and, very es-
;
pecially to the United States, because they are
the ones by which, and by which alone, — ex-
cept at the cost of a wide circuit,— she com-
municates with the Isthmus, and, generally,
with all the region lying within the borders of
the Caribbean.
In a very literal sense the Caribbean is a
mediterranean sea ; but the adjective must be
qualified when comparison is made with the
Mediterranean of the Old World or with the
Gulf of Mexico. The last-named bodies of
water communicate with the outer oceans by
passages so contracted as to be easily watched
from near-by positions, and for both there