Excerpt from The Elements of Navigation: A Short and Complete Explanation of the Standard Methods of Finding the Position of a Ship at Sea and the Course to Be Steered, Designed for the Instruction of BeginnersThe history of the three years 1914 to 1917 has been made with astounding rapidity and no part of it has been more absorbing than that dealing with naval Operations. The position of our own country in the beginning of the great European war seemed to the casual observer to be one of perfect security. We had three thousand miles of ocean between us and the warring nations, and all we had to do was to mind our own business and nothing could happen to us.But it slowly dawned upon all minds that unless we were disposed to mind our own business by withdrawing from the Atlantic Ocean and making no attempt to send our ships into European ports, we should presently be forced either to defend our rights or to admit that we did not have any.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.