Piers and huge railroad terminals are to be found on every side, and, more important still, they line the Hudson River for four or five miles on each side from its mouth at the Battery, to Fifty-ninth Street on the Manhattan side, and to Fort Lee in New Jersey. Similarly, but to a less extent, the East River is lined with piers while a great railroad terminal is located on Long Island Sound just beyond where the East River ends. Yet thriving as it is, this great port, compared with some other great ports, is an inefficient place. Marseilles is a smaller port than New York, yet Marseilles, for every linear foot of equipped quay, averages annually 1,500 tons of cargo transferred as against 150 at New York. The reason for this is that the ports are two different types. In New York the piers are long and narrow and are built on piles from the shore line out into the water to the pier line. Such structures are inefficient in many ways. The piers being narrow, they make it difficult for a roadway to be kept open throughout their entire length, and force the handlers of freight to store it high on both sides. Furthermore, the strength of the structures will seldom permit of the erection of numerous cranes along each side in order to expedite the loading and unloading of ships. [Illustration: A MAP OF THE PORT OF MARSEILLES _In this case the city grew up practically without a harbour. Finally a breakwater was erected parallel to the shore in order that ships might be protected from the sea._ ] In Hamburg there are quays 1,500 feet long with 3-ton cranes spaced every 100 feet. In all of New York Harbour there is no installation similar to this. It is true that at the Bush Terminals there is an excellent installation of warehouses, piers, railroad facilities, and other port equipment—an installation comparable to the best—but New York as a whole could be greatly improved, although it is only fair to say that the difficulties and expense would be great. But while foreign ports are likely to be more lavishly equipped with loading and unloading machinery, it must be remembered that they, long since, have developed the small areas at their disposal and cannot readily expand, while New York, great as it is, still has room for expansion and could add many times its present equipment to what it now has.