3. Communication. No mass of land equal in other advantages is to the
same extent thrown open and enriched by natural highways. The first
item under this head is access to the ocean, which is the great
road-space and highway of the world. Not mentioning the Pacific, as
that coast is not here considered, we have the open sea upon two sides,
while upon the northern boundary is an inclosed sea, the string of
lakes, occupying a space larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and of
a form to afford the greatest amount of coast-line and accommodation in
proportion to space. But coast-_line_ is not enough; land and sea must
be wedded as well as approximated. The Doge of Venice went annually
forth to wed the Adriatic in behalf of its queen, and to cast into its
bosom the symbolic ring; but Nature alone can really join the hands of
ocean and main. By bays, estuaries, ports, spaces of sea lovingly
inclosed by arms of sheltering shore, are conversation and union
established between them.

"The sea doth wash out all the ills of life," sings Euripides; and it
is, indeed, with some penetration of wonder that one observes how deep
and productive a relation to man the ocean has sustained. Some share in
the greatest enterprises, in the finest results, it seldom fails to
have. Not capriciously did the subtile Greek imagination derive the
birth of Venus from the foam of the sea; for social love,--that vast
reticulation of wedlock which society is--has commonly arisen not far
from the ocean-shore. The Persian is the only superior civilization,
now occurring to our recollection, which has no intimate relation
either with river or sea; and that pushed inevitably toward the Tigris
and Euphrates. Now to Europe must be conceded the supremacy in this
single respect, that of representing the most intimate coast relation
with the sea; North America follows next in order. Africa, washed, but
not wedded, by the wave, represents the greatest seclusion,--and has