KEPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC ROADS. 



United States Department of Agriculture, 



Office of Public Roads, 

 Washington^ D. 6'., November i^, 1911. 



Sir: I have the honor to submit herewith the report of the Office 

 of Public Roads for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911, and also an 

 outline of the work planned for the current and ensuing years. 

 Respectfully, 



Logan Waller Page, Director. 

 Hon. James Wilson, 



Secretary of Agriculture. 



WORK OF THE YEAR. 



During the past year the office continued to cooperate with local 

 authorities in the building of object-lesson and experimental roads. 

 The purpose of this work is to demonstrate standard types of road 

 construction, to introduce new methods, to experiment with new ma- 

 terials, and to instruct local road officials in the proper methods of 

 road building. Under this project roads were built in 52 places 

 during the year. 



Advice has been given by engineers and experts of the office con- 

 cerning model systems in 14 counties during the year. This work 

 involved an investigation of the entire road system of the county, 

 the location of its roads, a study of its materials, its systems of con- 

 struction, maintenance, and administration, and in fact every feature 

 of the work. Upon the completion of the investigation the engineer 

 prepares a detailed report for the local authorities, giving all data 

 of value in connection with the road system of the county, together 

 with recommendations and detailed plans and estimates for future 

 work covering a period of several years. 



During the year 183 assignments of engineers have been made for 

 the purpose of giving special advice and instruction concerning 

 specific problems which local authorities were unable to solve. 



Laboratory and field investigations have been continued for the 

 purpose of determining the physical and chemical composition .of 

 road materials and road binders and preservatives, and for develop- 

 ing and improving the methods of preparing and applying such mate- 

 rials. During the year 685 samples of road materials were received 

 and tested. 



In addition to the routine testing of samples of road materials 

 submitted to the laboratories to determine their qualities, much origi- 

 nal research work has been done, particularly with concrete contain- 

 ing an admixture of mineral oils. Oil-mixed concrete was discovered 



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