To begin with it needs to be said that mere size has little bearing on a port’s ability to handle large quantities of freight. By comparison with the area of the port of New York the area of the port of Liverpool is limited, New York being perhaps six times larger. Across the Mersey from Liverpool are the Birkenhead Docks, which, so far as mere area is concerned, are hardly larger than the Cumminipaw Terminal of the Central Railroad of New Jersey which lies across the Hudson from the Battery. The port of New York, including the New Jersey side of the Hudson and the Bay, has a developed waterfront several times as great as the port of Liverpool including the Birkenhead Docks, yet the tonnage of overseas freight handled in each of these two ports is roughly the same. The same comparison can be made with many other European ports, which are all far smaller than New York although several equal or exceed New York in the tonnage of transoceanic freight handled. But let us take New York and describe it, in order that other ports may be compared with it. [Illustration: A MAP OF THE PORT OF CAPE TOWN _Table Bay is open to the force of north and northwest winds. Before the bay could protect ships from the frequent storms blowing from these directions a series of breakwaters had to be built, in the lee of which ships could anchor._ ] Entering New York Bay from the ocean a ship passes between Coney Island on the right and Sandy Hook on the left. Within these two points lies the Lower Bay, a great and largely undeveloped body of water around which practically none of the port’s equipment is placed. Standing on up the channel, with Long Island on the right and Staten Island on the left, the ship enters the Narrows, a restricted passage connecting the Lower and the Upper bays. Once through the Narrows the port begins to show itself. The Upper Bay is smaller than the Lower and is roughly rectangular, while at each corner a river or a strait connects it with other bodies of water. Of these the Narrows, just mentioned, is the most important, for through it flows far and away the greatest stream of shipping. The Hudson River is second in importance, for this great and navigable stream penetrates far into the interior and is connected with the Great Lakes by the Erie Canal, or, as the newly finished improvement on the Erie Canal is called, the State Barge Canal. The other two exits from the Upper Bay are the East River—a strait connecting the Bay with Long Island Sound—and, least important, the Kill von Kull, leading from the Upper Bay to Newark Bay.