development of the nineteenth century exploited its mineral wealth. So
the English turned to the sea--to fish, to trade, to colonize. Holland's
conditions made for the same development. She united advantages of
coastline and position with a small infertile territory, consisting
chiefly of water-soaked grazing lands. When at the zenith of her
maritime development, a native authority estimated that the soil of
Holland could not support more than one-eighth of her inhabitants. The
meager products of the land had to be eked out by the harvest of the
sea. Fish assumed an important place in the diet of the Dutch, and when
a process of curing it was discovered, laid the foundation of Holland's
export trade. A geographical location central to the Baltic and North
Sea countries, and accessible to France and Portugal, combined with a
position at the mouth of the great German rivers made it absorb the
carrying trade of northern Europe.[13] Land and sea coöperated in its
maritime development.

[Sidenote: Land and sea opposed.]

Often the forces of land and sea are directly opposed. If a country's
geographic conditions are favorable to agriculture and offer room for
growth of population, the land forces prevail, because man is primarily
a terrestrial animal. Such a country illustrates what Chisholm, with
Attic nicety of speech, calls "the influence of bread-power on
history,"[14] as opposed to Mahan's sea-power. France, like England, had
a long coastline, abundant harbors, and an excellent location for
maritime supremacy and colonial expansion; but her larger area and
greater amount of fertile soil put off the hour of a redundant
population such as England suffered from even in Henry VIII's time.
Moreover, in consequence of steady continental expansion from the
twelfth to the eighteenth century and a political unification which made