GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 



659 



defined, to afford proper sites for great shipping-ports. Hence the 

 cities of this region Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, and Phila- 

 delphia are situated at the head of navigation, where the rivers come 

 down from the highlands on to the plain; and they are located like Al- 

 bany, remote from the seaboard, with which they are connected by 

 lono- and somewhat tortuous channels of inland navigation. New 

 York, on the contrary, is located directly on the coast, because here 

 alone the highlands reach to the sea, and their submerged valleys and 

 river-channels form commodious, rock-girt harbors, immediately acces- 

 sible from the ocean. It will be seen at a glance that this fact gives 

 it great commercial advantages, and has been the most potent influ- 

 ence in making this the chief port of entry for the country. 



Fig. 7. Map showing Old Channel and Mouth op the Hudson. 



On the Southern coast there is no harbor at all comparable with 

 that of New York except Norfolk. This is deep, roomy, and accessible 

 to the sea advantages which are destined to give it permanent and in- 

 creasing importance. But it is less central to the population and busi- 

 ness of the country ; and, while its inland water connections through 

 Chesapeake Bay and the tidal rivers which open into it are more ex- 

 tensive than those which the harbor of New York possesses, they are 

 less favorably situated in their relations to the present and future 

 internal commerce of the country. 



The great advantage which New York enjoys for trade with the 

 interior consists in its accessibility from the basin of the Great Lakes 

 where the most rapid accumulation of population and wealth of the last 

 half-century has taken place, and where the business of the country is 

 destined to concentrate in the future. As has been stated in the 

 preceding pages, the drainage of the lake-basin apparently flowed for 



