different ports necessarily run. Only an absolute control of the sea
can wholly secure such communications, since it is impossible to know
at what point an enemy coming from beyond the visible horizon may
strike but still, with an adequate naval force centrally posted, there
will be good hope of attacking his fleet, which is at once his base
and line of communications, before serious damage has been done. The
long, narrow peninsula of Florida, with Key West at its extremity,
though flat and thinly populated, presents at first sight conditions
like those of Italy. The resemblance may be only superficial, but it
seems probable that if the chief scene of a naval war were the Gulf of
Mexico, the communications by land to the end of the peninsula might
be a matter of consequence, and open to attack.

When the sea not only borders, or surrounds, but also separates a
country into two or more parts, the control of it becomes not only
desirable, but vitally necessary. Such a physical condition either
gives birth and strength to sea power, or makes the country powerless.
Such is the condition of the present kingdom of Italy, with its
islands of Sardinia and Sicily; and hence in its youth and still
existing financial weakness it is seen to put forth such vigorous and
intelligent efforts to create a military navy. It has even been argued
that, with a navy decidedly superior to her enemy's, Italy could
better base her power upon her islands than upon her mainland; for the
insecurity of the lines of communication in the peninsula, already
pointed out, would most seriously embarrass an invading army
surrounded by a hostile people and threatened from the sea.

The Irish Sea, separating the British Islands, rather resembles an
estuary than an actual division; but history has shown the danger from
it to the United Kingdom. In the days of Louis XIV., when the French