SOME TYPICAL PORTS 25
for any length of time and then forwarded in accordance
with the owners’ directions. There is also a series of
factories, with power-service, in contiguity with the ware-
houses, and these are leased to manufacturers who display
their samples at a building (similar to the Bush Building
in the Strand, London) on Manhattan Island. As
business requires, the lessee of the factory sends his order
to the Terminal and delivery is made to any steamship or
railway by simply placing the goods in front of the elevator
on the factory floor, where the bill of lading is handed over.
It is a highly effective and convenient system with every
step properly co-ordinated so as to secure economy,
promptitude and dispatch. The system has been intro-
duced at other ports, particularly in connection with
Army Supply Bases established during the war, examples
of which are to be found at Boston, New Orleans, and
elsewhere.

The harbour of New York, which is a magnificent stretch
of sheltered water in the joint estuaries of the Hudson and
East Rivers, comprises 250 square miles of river and bay
with 465 miles of shore line. There are no docks in the
English sense of the word, and no occasion for them, as the
rise and fall of the tide on the average is not more than
4 or 5 ft. The shipping piers are mainly framework and
piled structures projecting into the rivers from the shore
or “bulkhead ” line. Of these piers there are nearly 400
which individually exceed 350 ft. in length.

HONG-KONG

It would be possible, of course, to survey instructively
a very considerable number of ports throughout the world,
but this cannot be done within the limits of space imposed
by the present volume. Conditions vary very materially
in different climes and latitudes, under different forms of
government, according to race and tradition, under
economical and financial exigencies of greater or less
extent, and so on. We must content ourselves in this

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