Page 328 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

306 Strategic Features of the Gulf of ;

Puerto Rico are such as to constitute it the
natural stepping-stone by which to pass from
the consideration of entrance into the Carib-
bean, which has been engaging our attention,
to that of the transit across, from entrance to
the Isthmus, which we must next undertake.
In the matters of entrance to the Caribbean,
and of general interior control of that sea,
Jamaica has a singularly central position. It
is equidistant (500 miles) from Colon, from the
Yucatan Channel, and from the Mona Passage
it is even closer (450 miles) to the nearest main-
land of South America at Point Gallinas, and
of Central America at Cape Gracias-a-Dios
;
while it lies so immediately in rear of the
Windward Passage that its command of the
latter can scarcely be considered less than that
of Santiago. The analogy of its situation, as
a station for a great fleet, to that for an army
covering a frontier which is passable at but a
few points, will scarcely escape a military
reader. A comparatively short chain of swift
lookout steamers, in each direction, can give
timely notice of any approach by either of the
three passages named while, if entrance be
;
gained at any other point, the arms stretched