"The ocean is the grand vehicle of trade, and the uniter of distant nations. To us it is peculiarly kind, not only as it wafts into our ports the harvests of every climate, and renders our island the centre of traffic, but also as it secures us from foreign invasion by a sort of impregnable intrenchment."

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All the elements will be seen mixed together in a great whirling mass, now borne towards the centre of the world, now towards the sky; and now furiously rushing from the South towards the frozen North, and sometimes from the East towards the West, and then again from this hemisphere to the other.

— Leonardo da Vinci