Long prior to that, New York was growing with giant vitality. She possesses, as every great city must possess preeminent advantages for the support of a vast population and the employment of immense industries. If she could not feed a million of men better than Norfolk, Norfolk would be New York and New York Norfolk. If the products of the world were not more economically exchanged across her counter than over that of Baltimore, Baltimore would need to set about building shelter for half a million more heads than sleep there to-night. Perth Amboy was at one time a prominent rival of New York in the struggle for the position of the American Metropolis, and is not New York only because Nature said No! Let us invite the map to help us in our investigation of New York's claim to the metropolitan rank. There are three chief requisites for the chief city of every nation. It must be the city in easiest communication with other countries,--on the sea-coast, if there be a good harbor there, or on some stream debouching into the best harbor that there is. It must be the city in easiest communication with the interior, either by navigable streams, or valleys and mountain-passes, and thus the most convenient rendezvous for the largest number of national interests,--the place where Capital and Brains, Import and Export, Buyer and Seller, Doers and Things to be Done, shall most naturally make their appointments to meet for exchange. Last, (and least, too,--for even cautious England will people jungles for money's sake,) the metropolis must enjoy at least a moderate sanitary reputation; otherwise men who love Fortune well enough to die for her will not be reinforced by another large class who care to die on no account whatever.