HARBORS AND CIVILIZATION 



First Condition of Ships. — Origin of Maritime Habit ; Relation of Habit to Form of Shore ; 

 Effect on National Progress. — Condition of North America as regards Harbors.- - 

 Reeiuirements of a Good Port. — Classification of Harbors. — Delta Harbors. — Valley 

 Harbors : How Dependent on Changes of Level. — Fjord Harbors : The Conditions of 

 their Formation; Value as Ports. — Mountain Range Harbors. — Morainal Harbors. 



One of the most im[)ortant steps which lead from the 

 primitive savage state toward the ways of culture and civili- 

 zation is taken when men contrive instruments of naviga- 

 tion. Almost all the peoples of the earth have accomplished 

 this first stage of advance. Only a few inferior races are 

 without devices in the way of boats. Although this art of 

 navigation is itself a powerful instrument of culture, inasmuch 

 as it teaches men to contrive and use tools, to face danger 

 and to associate their action in a very educative way, it was 

 only slowly and rarely that they attained sufficient skill in the 

 construction and management of boats to venture upon broad 

 waters. Ships of considerable size, fit to undertake long 

 voyages, appear to have been separately invented at several 

 different points in the Old World— by the Scandinavians, by 

 their kindred Aryans of the Mediterranean, by the Chinese, 

 and perhaps, separately, by the people of the Malay archipel- 

 ao-o and of Hindostan. The PhtLMiicians and other Semitic 

 people early acquired the art of constructing large boats, but 

 whether by their own invention or by copying those of other 

 people is uncertain. 



