The United States of America together with the possessions included within the domain of the Republic comprise an area somewhat greater than that of Europe.

With respect to latitude, the position of the main body of the United States is extremely fortunate. Practically all its area is situated in the warmer half of the temperate zone. Only a small part lies beyond the northern limit of the corn belt; wheat, oats, and barley are cultivated successfully throughout four-fifths of its extent in latitude; grass, and therefore cattle and sheep are grown in nearly every part. Coal, iron, copper, gold, and silver, the minerals and metals which give to a nation its greatest material power, exist in abundance, and the successful working of these deposits have placed the country upon a very high commercial plane.

Topographically the United States may be divided into the following regions:

The Atlantic Coast-Plain,
The Appalachian Ranges and the New England Plateau,
The Basin of the Great Lakes,
The Northern Mississippi Valley Region,
The Southern Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coast,
The Arid Plains,
The Plateau Region,
The Pacific Coast Lowlands.

The topographic and climatic features of these various regions have had a great influence not only on the political history of the country, but their effect has been even greater in determining its industrial development. They have resulted in the establishment of the various industries, each in the locality best adapted to it, instead of their diffusion without respect to the necessary conditions of environment.

The foregoing regions are also approximately areas of fundamental industries. Thus, the New England plateau supplies the rest of the United States with light manufactures, such as cotton textiles, woollen clothing, hats, shoes, cutlery, books, writing-paper, household metal wares, etc., but sells the excess abroad. The middle and southern Appalachians, with the coal which forms their chief resource, supply the rest of the country with structural steel, from ores obtained in the lake regions, and sell the excess to foreign countries.

The northern Mississippi Valley grows nearly one-fourth of the world's wheat-crop. The wheat of this region and the Pacific coast lowlands supplies the country with bread-stuffs, and exports the excess to western Europe. The Gulf states, which produce three-fourths of the world's cotton-crop, supply the whole country and about one-half the rest of the world besides with cotton textiles. The grazing regions produce an excess of meat for export; the western highlands furnish the gold and silver necessary to carry on the enormous commerce.

In the last twenty years the imports of merchandise per capita varied but little from $11.50; the exports per capita varied from about $12 to more than $18.

The Atlantic Coast-Plain and the Seaports.—Throughout most of its extent the Atlantic seaboard of the United States is bordered by a low coast-plain. Along the northeastern coast of the United States the coast-plain is very narrow; south of New York Bay it has a width in some places of more than two hundred miles.

The existence of this plain has had a marked effect on the commercial development of the country. The sinking or "drowning" of the northern part of it has made an exceedingly indented coast. The drowned valleys, enclosed by ridges and headlands, form the best of harbors, and nearly all of them are northeast of New York Bay. South of New York Bay good harbors are comparatively few. For the greater part they occur only when old, buried river-channels permit approach to the shore.

The most important port of entry in these harbors is New York, and it derives its importance from two factors. It has a very capacious harbor, into which vessels drawing as much as thirty-five feet may enter; its situation at the lower end of a series of valleys and passes makes it almost a dead level route from the Mississippi to the Atlantic seaboard. The importance of New York as the commercial gateway between European ports and the food-producing region of the American continent began when the Erie Canal was opened between the Great Lakes and tide-water. The completion of the canal for the first time opened the rich farming lands of the interior to European markets. Probably a greater tonnage of freight is carried yearly over this route than over any other channel of trade in the world.

Not far from two-thirds of the foreign commerce of the country passes through the port of New York. The water-front of the city has an aggregate length of about three hundred miles, of which one-third is available for anchorage. The docks and piers, including those of Jersey City and Hoboken, aggregate about ninety miles in frontage.

About sixteen thousand sea-going craft enter and clear yearly, and an average of nearly twenty large passenger and freight steamships arrive and clear daily, about one-half of them being foreign. The latter receive their cargoes from about three thousand freight-cars that are daily switched into the various freight-yards, a large part of which is through freight from the west.

The port of entry of New York is a centre of population of about four million, and although there are the industries usually found in great communities, the greater business enterprises practically reduce themselves to export, import, and exchange. For this reason New York City is the financial, as well as the commercial centre of the continent. Most of the great industrial corporations of the country have their head offices in the city. These are financed by more than one hundred banks, together with a clearing-house whose yearly business amounted in 1902 to considerably more than seventy billions of dollars.[50]

Boston has been one of the leading ports of the United States for considerably more than a century. It ranks second among the ports of the United States. Regular lines of transit connect it with the principal ports of Great Britain and Canada. The coast trade is also very heavy. Boston is the financial and commercial centre of New England; the cotton, woollen, and leather goods passing through the port find their way to nearly every inhabited part of the world. The city controls a considerable export trade of food-stuffs from the upper Mississippi Valley. The vessels entering and clearing at Boston indicate a movement of about four million five hundred thousand tons, about one-fourth that of New York. The clearing-house exchanges average about six billion dollars yearly.

Philadelphia, on account of its distance inland, is not fortunately situated for ocean commerce. Steamships of deep draught reach their docks at the lower end of the city under their own steam, but sailing-craft pay heavy towage fees. There are regular lines to Liverpool, Antwerp, West Indian ports, Baltimore, and Boston. Philadelphia is the centre of the anthracite coal trade, and this is the chief factor of its domestic trade. The imports of fruit from the West Indies, carpet-wool from Europe, and raw sugar from the West Indies, form the greater part of its foreign business. The manufactures are mainly carpets and rugs, locomotives and iron steamships, and refined sugar. The carpet-weaving and the ship-building plants are among the largest in the world. The ocean movement of freight is more than three million five hundred thousand tons yearly. The business of the clearing-house in 1902 aggregated nearly six billion dollars.

Baltimore is likewise handicapped by its distance inland. Sailing-vessels, however, require only a short towage, the docks being scarcely a dozen miles from Chesapeake Bay. The harbor is deep and capacious. The Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio railway systems have made Baltimore an important railway centre. The completion of the Gould railway system to the Atlantic seaboard has made the city second to New York only in the export of corn, wheat, flour, and tobacco. The most noteworthy local industry is the oyster product, which is the greatest in the world. Nearly ten thousand people are employed, and during the busy season—from September to the end of April—about thirty carloads of oysters a day are shipped.

The yearly movement of marine freight, entering and clearing, aggregates about three million tons. In 1902 the clearing-house exchanges aggregated about two and one-quarter billion dollars.

Portland, Me., has good harbor facilities, but is distant from the great lines of traffic. Steamship lines, which in summer make Montreal a terminal point, occasionally make Portland their winter harbor. Newport News, Savannah, Charleston, and Brunswick are growing in importance as clearing ports for the cotton and produce from the region west of them. Norfolk obtains importance on account of the United States Navy-Yard; it is also the great peanut-market of the world.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

FOR COLLATERAL REFERENCE