[Illustration: A MAP OF THE PORT OF RIO DE JANEIRO _Rio Bay is probably the finest in the world, but mountains paralleling the coast form a handicap to the easy transportation of goods inland._] The natural advantages of a port, however, are of the greatest value when they combine many things far distant from the port itself with the natural advantages of the harbour, its surroundings, and its outlet. To cite New York once more, among its great advantages are these: First, a fine harbour, with ease of access to the sea yet with thorough protection from its storms. Second, suitable land surrounding the harbour, on which factories, warehouses, piers, and shipyards can be erected. Third, a great and navigable river leading into a rich country. Fourth, a fine canal connecting the upper reaches of that river with a far greater land, rich in people of great purchasing and producing power, rich in mines, in farms, in factories. Fifth, routes leading overland into the interior along which great railroads have been built that reach with their network ten thousand centres that otherwise could not buy the goods imported to New York or sell their own either there or beyond the seas. These five things have created at the mouth of the Hudson one of the greatest seaports of all time. Without any one of them New York could not be the port it is, but of the five, the first two are the least important, for a harbour could be made, and had the surrounding land been a marsh it could have been built into dry land. Without the trade of the great land to the West, however, New York could not have been the port that it is to-day. But an account of all the factors that go to make a port would take one far afield, so with only this inconsequential statement in reference to the vast economic structure that lies behind a port, I shall confine myself directly to the port itself and to its environs, its equipment, and its activities. No two ports are identical, but the major ports of the world divide themselves more or less readily into types which I may be permitted to call the European and the American types, inaccurate as those classifications may be. I shall describe, in more or less detail, these two types, and add to this something from other ports that fall less readily under these two inaccurate classifications.