If the Adriatic were a great highway of commerce, Italy's position
would be still more influential. These defects in her geographical
completeness, combined with other causes injurious to a full and
secure development of sea power, make it more than doubtful whether
Italy can for some time be in the front rank among the sea nations.

As the aim here is not an exhaustive discussion, but merely an attempt
to show, by illustration, how vitally the situation of a country may
affect its career upon the sea, this division of the subject may be
dismissed for the present; the more so as instances which will further
bring out its importance will continually recur in the historical
treatment. Two remarks, however, are here appropriate.

Circumstances have caused the Mediterranean Sea to play a greater part
in the history of the world, both in a commercial and a military point
of view, than any other sheet of water of the same size. Nation after
nation has striven to control it, and the strife still goes on.
Therefore a study of the conditions upon which preponderance in its
waters has rested, and now rests, and of the relative military values
of different points upon its coasts, will be more instructive than the
same amount of effort expended in another field. Furthermore, it has
at the present time a very marked analogy in many respects to the
Caribbean Sea, an analogy which will be still closer if a Panama
canal-route ever be completed. A study of the strategic conditions of
the Mediterranean, which have received ample illustration, will be an
excellent prelude to a similar study of the Caribbean, which has
comparatively little history.

The second remark bears upon the geographical position of the United
States relatively to a Central-American canal. If one be made, and