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Dock Management Progress How Successful Dock Operators Have Met Problems of Giving Best Service to Ships Portland, Ore.—Air View of Lower Harbor—Willamette River Looking Northwest ortland Serves the Northwest As a River Seaport to the Pacific HAT Portland, the great river and ocean gateway of the Pa- cific coast of America, already a major ‘port, is destined to be one of the world’s chief shipping centers, is evident by an impartial survey of its surroundings. A seaport having an elongated har- bor that is also a deep and ample river, is not handicapped in the race for world commerce as against salt water ports. This is proven by num- erous notable examples. London is sixty miles up the Thames from the North sea—Hamburg an equal dis- tance from the mouth of the Elbe— New Orleans is ninety miles from the point where the Mississippi pours its muddy waters into the Gulf of The author, Erwin A. Taft, is manager of the foreign trade department of the Portland (Oreg.) chamber of commerce. The aerial photo- graphs used as illustrations were taken by the Brubaker Aerial Surveys, Portland, Oreg. 40 By Erwin A. Taft Mexico. Portland is slightly more than this distance from the mouth of the Columbia river, the most majestic of all the world’s great navigable streams. The Columbia pours into the Pacific a volume of water as great as that of the Thames and the Elbe combined, and, in this country, sec- ond only to the Mississippi—the Father of Waters. The harbor of Portland begins at the mouth of the Columbia, 160 miles south of the Straits of Juan de Fuca and 610 miles north of San Fran- cisco bay. Atmospheric Conditions Are Good That the sea area of the Colum- bia’s mouth is a favored zone for the navigator is shown by the fog records kept on the lightships, mark- ing the entrances to three harbors on the Pacific coast. The record of MARINE REVIEW—March, 1928 fog as averaged for ten years shows that the Columbia entrance has fog interference of only 50 per cent of that at the Straits of Juan de Fuca which is the entrance to Puget sound, and but 40 per cent of that at the entrance of San Francisco bay. This shows the Columbia to have the fair- est and easiest approach of any har- bor on the coast. The river and the harbor of Portland is open to navigation throughout the year. Free and easy transit, unhampered by flood, storm or ice, is guaranteed to shipping at all times. The first survey of the mouth of the Columbia was made by Admiral Vancouver in 1792. At that time the river met the ocean on a front of more than six miles, the depth rang- ing from shoal water over the shore spits to the main channel depth of around 20 feet at mean low water. : bs