38 nations had their birth and growth on the banks of large rivers and by the shores of the sea.
Egypt on the banks of the Nile, whose periodic inundations suggested great works and monuments; Greece, with its shores bathed by the waters of the Mediterranean; Rome built upon the Tiber; Constantinople on the Bosphorus; Paris, with open navigation on the Seine; London, piercing the gloom of the fog with its life and light, sailing the Thames, welding the iron and extracting the coal from its mines; Germany, floating upon the Rhine; and, in modern times, the United States of America palpitating upon the shores of the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, the Missouri and the Mississippi, and around the great lakes, Erie, Ontario, Huron, Michigan and Superior; while in the southern extremity of the continent, the Argentine country grows, prospers and develops in power, in the reflection of its wonderful River Plate.
But the merest analysis of these singular geographic conditions would show us that no nation of the world enjoys greater facilities of communication, or has received more permanent suggestion from the elements than the United States of America. It is sufficient to glance at the map of this great country, or visit it, in order to realize that the people of the United States find objective instruction everywhere in their surroundings; they beheld the course of the ways of communication, and appreciated the development these would produce according as their utilization was or less easy.
This admirable geographic condition, more than anything else, has created the spirit of North America, has more