"An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adam Smith)

charged the maintenance of a hundred men for three weeks, and both the
maintenance and what is nearly equal to maintenance the wear and tear
of four hundred horses, as well as of fifty great waggons. Whereas,
upon the same quantity of goods carried by water, there is to be
charged only the maintenance of six or eight men, and the wear and
tear of a ship of two hundred tons burthen, together with the value of
the superior risk, or the difference of the insurance between land and
water-carriage. Were there no other communication between those two
places, therefore, but by land-carriage, as no goods could be
transported from the one to the other, except such whose price was
very considerable in proportion to their weight, they could carry on
but a small part of that commerce which at present subsists between
them, and consequently could give but a small part of that
encouragement which they at present mutually afford to each other's
industry. There could be little or no commerce of any kind between the
distant parts of the world. What goods could bear the expense of
land-carriage between London and Calcutta? Or if there were any so
precious as to be able to support this expense, with what safety could
they be transported through the territories of so many barbarous
nations? Those two cities, however, at present carry on a very
considerable commerce with each other, and by mutually affording a
market, give a good deal of encouragement to each other's industry.

Since such, therefore, are the advantages of water-carriage, it is
natural that the first improvements of art and industry should be made
where this conveniency opens the whole world for a market to the
produce of every sort of labour, and that they should always be much
later in extending themselves into the inland parts of the country.
The inland parts of the country can for a long time have no other
market for the greater part of their goods, but the country which lies
round about them, and separates them from the sea-coast, and the great
navigable rivers. The extent of the market, therefore, must for a long
time be in proportion to the riches and populousness of that country,
and consequently their improvement must always be posterior to the
improvement of that country. In our North American colonies, the
plantations have constantly followed either the sea-coast or the banks
of the navigable rivers, and have scarce anywhere extended themselves
to any considerable distance from both.

The nations that, according to the best authenticated history, appear
to have been first civilized, were those that dwelt round the coast of
the Mediterranean sea. That sea, by far the greatest inlet that is
known in the world, having no tides, nor consequently any waves,
except such as are caused by the wind only, was, by the smoothness of
its surface, as well as by the multitude of its islands, and the
proximity of its neighbouring shores, extremely favourable to the
infant navigation of the world; when, from their ignorance of the
compass, men were afraid to quit the view of the coast, and from the
imperfection of the art of ship-building, to abandon themselves to the
boisterous waves of the ocean. To pass beyond the pillars of Hercules,