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.

[Illustration: CHARLESTON HARBOR]

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

What are the requisites of a good seaport?

What is meant by the draught of a vessel?

For what purposes are pilots?

How are navigable channels marked and designated?

From the Statistical Abstract find six or more of the leading exports
from each of the following ports: New York, Boston, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, and the port nearest which you live.

FOR COLLATERAL REFERENCE

Statistical Abstract of the United States.

Statesman's Year-Book.

Industrial Evolution of the United States--Chapter II.