74 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and maintained. Little attention has been paid by the rural 

 dweller to the arguments in favor of good roads. His line of 

 reasoning is that roads that were satisfactory to his father and 

 grandfather are good enough for him. In vain has he been told 

 that, with good roads all the year round, the farmer and mer- 

 chant come into closer communication ; that he can sell his stock 

 and grain when prices tempt him, instead of being dependent 

 upon a favorable state of the road ; that he can buy his supplies 

 on rainy days, and increase his number of perishable crops, 

 which are of uncertain value with bad roads, but become of cer- 

 tain value when impassable ways cease to cause spasmodic trans- 

 portation. 



To-day State roads are furnishing the farmer the much-needed 

 object lessons roads which by their general excellence through- 

 out the year are causing, as in some counties in New Jersey, a 

 marked increase in farm values. Other States, as Massachusetts, 

 are building highways with State money, one fourth of which is 

 eventually returned to the State by the county traversed by the 

 way, while the legislative enactments of other States require a 

 portion of the expense to be borne by the county in which the 

 road lies, and by the freeholders whose property immediately 

 abuts the improved roads. The mutual benefit derived from im- 

 proved highways by all classes of people is now generally recog- 

 nized in the more thrifty States, and from now on we may expect 

 with surety the gradual development of our highways until the 

 principal thoroughfares of the country come up to the required 

 standard of excellence. 



Travelers have described the celebrated Peruvian military 

 road, leading from Cuzco to Quito, that was constructed long be- 

 fore the time the Spaniards conquered that country, about 1544. 

 This road is variously estimated at fifteen hundred to two thousand 

 miles in length, passing over deep caiions and across high moun- 

 tain ranges. Large sandstone blocks formed the foundation, and 

 this was covered with a native cement of a bituminous nature, 

 forming a very smooth surface possessing great durability. Some 

 portions of the road are still in an excellent state of preservation. 

 The Romans also constructed over ten thousand miles of paved 

 ways ; but none of these ancient builders understood the prin- 

 ciples made use of to-day. 



The art of building the type of road known as the modern 

 highway is not a new one. The second decade of this century in 

 England witnessed the first examples of turnpikes constructed on" 

 scientific principles in that country as enunciated by Macadam. 

 Like many discoveries, the first and one of the most important 

 principles involved is one that we should expect would have been 

 discovered and put in general practice long before 1816. At that 



