ea, whence, moreover, it receives
the most important contributions to its development. The geographic
location of a coast as part of a thalassic or of an oceanic rim is a
basic factor in its history; more potent than local conditions of
fertility, irregular contour, or accessibility from sea and hinterland.
Everything that can be said about the different degrees of historical
importance attaching to inland seas and open oceans in successive ages
applies equally to the countries and peoples along their shores; and
everything that enhances or diminishes the cultural possibilities of a
sea--its size, zonal location, its relation to the oceans and
continents--finds its expression in the life along its coasts.

The anthropo-geographical evolution which has passed from small to large
states and from small to large seas as fields of maritime activity has
been attended by a continuous change in the value of coasts, according
as these were located on enclosed basins like the Mediterranean, Red,
and Baltic; on marginal ones like the China and North seas; or on the
open ocean. In the earlier periods of the world's history, a location on
a relatively small enclosed sea gave a maritime horizon wide enough to
lure, but not so wide as to intimidate; and by its seclusion led to a
concentration and intensification of historical development, which in
many of its phases left models for subsequent ages to wonder at and
imitate. This formative period and formative environment outgrown,
historical development was transferred to locations on the open oceans,
according to the law of human advance from small to large areas. The
historical importance of the Mediterranean and the Baltic shores was
transitory, a prelude to the larger importance of the Atlantic littoral
of Europe, just as this in turn was to attain its full significance only
when the circumnavigation of Africa and South America linked the
Atlantic to the World Ocean. Thus that gradual expansion of the
geographic horizon which has accompanied the progress of history has
seen a slow evolution in the value of seaboard locations, the transfer
of maritime leadership from small to large basins, from thalassic to
oceanic ports, from Lubeck to Hamburg, from Venice to Genoa, as earlier
from the Piraeus to Ostia, and later from England's little _Cinque Ports_
to Liverpool and the Clyde.

[Sidenote: Geographic location of coasts.]

Though the articulations of a coast determine the ease with