900 BOARD OF AGKICULTURE. 



along straight lines, no heed being given to obstructions; they cllmbecl 

 hills and mountains, regardless of grade. They were all constructed of 

 blocks of stone more or less smoothly dressed, closely joined together and 

 laid upon a thiclc bed of concrete; these were superimposed upon a foun- 

 dation of thick blocks of stone, bound together in mass by a bond of 

 cement; the entire thickness of the structure was three feet; curbs, aque- 

 ducts, bridges, milestones, etc., made the system complete, wanting noth- 

 ing; ditches, dikes, aqueducts and bridges were carefully constructed upon 

 exact mathematical principles; so that after more than fifteen hundred 

 years of use, many yet stand as witness to the skill and knowledge of 

 those who planned and constructed them. 



Modern engineers have declared this form of construction far too ex- 

 pensive for imitation. Do they take into full account the small cost of 

 the maintenance of tliese, and the marvelous increase of facilities for 

 modern construction? Pursuant to her usual policy of binding every in- 

 tegral part of h^r conquests fast to the empire, no sooner had the legion- 

 aries beaten tlie Britons into subjection tlian the Romans began to build 

 their characteristic roads to all important points of the island, and the 

 remains of some of these are still visible, though owing to frequent 

 storms, heavy rains, alternate freezing and thawing, the climate has 

 tried them much more severely than upon the continent. But with the 

 withdrawal of the legions to meet the hordes that were pressing hard 

 upon the seven-hill cit3% and the overthrow of the civil government the 

 island soon relapsed into its former condition, the floods covered up the 

 Roman roads, and instead of that national surety which the conqueror 

 sought through the law, her system of roads, etc., isolation and provin- 

 cialism soon reappeared with all their usual, concomitants of jealousy, 

 hatred and strife. That the English character was as it appeared in the 

 fifteenth century, grave, taciturn and much given to reflecting upon mat- 

 ters of religion, was due in some measure to isolation resulting from the 

 impassable condition of the roads during a considerable portion of the 

 year when fogs, mists, rains and snows and storms held their sway over 

 the ocean-lashed island. The great lesson taught by the Romans was 

 lost, for the roads continued as wretched as they well could be down to 

 the time of Charles II. though as far back as 1350 certain roads had been 

 turned over to private corporations to be kept in a passable condition, 

 in consideration of the riglit to e.xact toll at certain fixed rates. In 1550, 

 Parliament imposed upon the parishes through whicli the roads extended 

 the duty of keeping them passable, but the creeping injustice of this act 

 and the heavy burden it imposed upon some caused so much clamor that 

 it was repealed. In the time of the "Merry Monarch," ho^-ever. the de- 

 mands of public travel and trade had grown to such proportions as to 

 require better roads and better maintenance, but it Avas not until the be- 

 ginning of the nineteenth century that tlu> present system was also adopted 



