The Key to the Pacific 



2 95 



200 east and west there is absolutely not 

 a sign of any living thing. 



It is relatively but a little while since 

 Lop-Nor was much larger than now and 

 expanded to such a size that most, if not 

 all, of the old bed was covered by water, 

 as is proved by the location of ancient 

 roads and beaches. At the time of Christ, 

 as the writer has shown in "The Pulse 

 of Asia," the lake appears to have been 

 of large dimensions. Then it diminished 

 in size, and about five centuries later was 

 probably as small or smaller than it now 

 is. Later it expanded, and with varying 

 fluctuations remained comparatively large 

 until about 1600 A. D. Now it has once 

 more diminished, and the people who 

 formerly were supported by it have 

 largely died off. A century or two ago 

 they used to carry fish two or three hun- 

 dred miles eastward to the Chinese cities 

 where Nestorian Christians lived in the 

 days of Marco Polo and earlier. Now 

 the desert has become so rigorous 



and the fish have so decreased in number 

 that the traffic has been given up. The 

 writer of the Letters of Prester John 

 was almost right when he said that fish 

 were procured from the Sea of Sand. 

 They certainly came from the border be- 

 tween it and the Sea of Salt. 



Further details might be added show- 

 ing that the statements in the Letters 

 could only have been written by a man 

 who had some knowledge of Central 

 Asia, although his information may have 

 been much distorted. Enough has been 

 said to show that in Chaucer's day and 

 earlier the Lop Basin was by no means 

 an entirely unknown land. It is a con- 

 tinual surprise to mankind to find how 

 wide a knowledge was possessed by 

 earlier generations. 



* For further information on this part of the 

 world, the reader is referred to "The Pulse of 

 Asia :" a journey in Central Asia, illustrating 

 the geographic basis of history. By Ellsworth 

 Huntington. Pp. 415. Illustrated. New York : 

 Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1907. $3.50. 



THE KEY TO THE PACIFIC 



By Hon. George C. Perkins 



United States Senator from California 



THE importance of the Hawaiian 

 Islands to the Pacific Coast 

 states is supreme. Those states 

 in the future will rely more and more 

 for their prosperity upon the trade with 

 the Orient across the Pacific, and with 

 the East and Europe through the Panama 

 Canal. That there may be a guarantee 

 that this commerce shall endure and in- 

 crease in volume, the United States must 

 be at least the equal in naval power of 

 any nation using those waters for the 

 transportation of goods ; and a part of 

 the power of a navy is supplied by its 

 bases, from which all exposed points can 

 be best watched and whence aid can be 

 most quickly sent. 



As such a base the Hawaiian Islands 

 present advantages to us which have no 



counterparts elsewhere in the Pacific. 

 Lying within easy steaming distance of 

 our Pacific coast, as naval vessels are to- 

 day constructed, they afford a point from 

 which the whole North Pacific Ocean can 

 be patrolled by cruisers, and from which 

 the commerce of the Panama Canal can 

 be protected. They afford a strategic 

 point whose vast significance can be re- 

 alized best by supposing the islands in the 

 hands of a hostile power engaged in war 

 with us. From that point the enemy 

 could send out cruisers to sweep from the 

 sea the commerce of the Pacific ports 

 and of the canal, while it would afford a 

 base of operations for attacks on our 

 Pacific Coast ports, as well as on the 

 Canal Zone. 



With these islands in the hands of an 



