Note 659 — Chapter XI · —The Anthropo-Geography Of Rivers

Owing to the strong pull exerted by a river's mouth upon all its basin, current, commerce and people alike tend to reach the ocean. For a nation holding the terrestrial course of a stream, the political fate of its tidal course or mouth must always be a matter of great concern. To the early westerner of the United States, before the acquisition of the Louisiana country, it was of vital importance whether belligerent France or more amenable Spain or the Republic itself should own the mouth of the Mississippi. Germany, which holds 240 miles (400 kilometers) of the navigable Danube,659 can never be indifferent to the political ownership of its mouth, or to the fact that a great power like Russia has edged forward, by the acquisition of Bessarabia in 1878, to the northern or Kilia debouchment channel.660 Such interest shows itself in sustained efforts either to gain political control of the mouth, or to secure the neutrality of the stream by having it declared an international waterway, and thus partially to deprive the state holding its mouth of the advantages of its transit location.