Excerpt from Sea Power and Freedom: A Historical Study For the most part, the efforts of navigators were directed then to navigating vessels which were built and used for the purposes of trade; and, for the most part, the efforts of navigators are similarly directed now. In those days, transportation over the water was under taken for the same reason as was transportation over the land - for trade. This is the fact now, and the reason is the same. In those days, the water separated por tions of the land from other portions, and dwellers in one place could usually find in other places certain pro ducts of the soil or handiwork which they did not them selves possess but which they could obtain in exchange for certain products of their own. This was sea com merce in the earliest days, and it is sea commerce now. The main difference is in the number and quantity of the things produced and traded for. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.