652 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION H. 



Perhaps the first pavement, of the existence of which there is 

 strong presumptive evidence — although here even some yet consider a 

 trace of doubt attaches thereto — is that of remains discovered in the 

 vicinity of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. Along this supposed road 

 leading across a sandy waste Pharoah, of the fourth dynasty, is thought 

 to have conveyed material for the construction of that monument 4,000 

 years B.C. Subsequently we read of the broad paved road which led 

 from the city of Memphis to the Great Pyramids, and which was about 

 six miles long. Judged from the modern standpoint, these roads must 

 have been of the crudest description. 



Not until somewhere about B.C. 600 do we approach the period 

 of authentic record. The Carthagenians were probably the first to 

 systematically construct and maintain their roads. With the destruc- 

 tion of Carthage by the Eomans in B.C. 146 the latter began to make 

 history — and roads — after the art of the Carthagenians. 



These two great powers of their day waged many bloody wars against 

 each other ; and the history of the Punic wars reveals a master mind in 

 the person of the great Hannibal, the Phoenician general, whose military 

 achievements compare with those»of the great Napoleon. By his genius 

 immense armies were taken thousands of miles ; and where no roads 

 existed they were made, or may be only formed, to facilitate his ends. 

 In one case it is stated (but not by an eye witness) that he kindled huge 

 fires on impassable rocks, then poured vinegar on them till they crumbled 

 away and permitted a road to be made. Where the immense quantity 

 of vinegar came from not even the historian Livy offers any information. 



About B.C. 300 the Appian and Flaminian ways were commenced 

 by the Romans. They were said to have been built with stone and 

 cement mortar, which in places attained a depth of several feet and 

 lasted probably a thousand years. The Romans constructed roads 

 concurrently with conquest, and in Great Britain alone they made 

 2,500 miles of roads, also many miles in Palestine. 



In the new world excellent foot roads were constructed by the 

 Peruvians and Mexicans centuries ago. 



After a long interval the mantle of the Romans seems to have been 

 assumed by the French, and they are deservedly reputed for the excel- 

 lence of their roads and systematic maintenance of same. The first 

 paved roads in Paris date back to the reign of Phillip Augustus, about 

 1184, the population then being about 200,000. A new era in road- 

 making was marked when in the sixteenth century Henry IV. 

 established the office of " Great Way Warden," whose duty it was to 

 control and keep in order the public roads in France. 



In Spain, Cordova is credited with paved roads dating back to 

 850 A.D., but the first constructed subsequent to the Roman era were 

 made in 1749 by Fernando VI., from Santander to Reinoso. In 1749 

 a special bureau was constituted in charge of all road work. The 

 first actually systematic arrangement was not, however, attained 

 until after the establishment of a school of engineering in 1834. 



In 1555 the first Highway Act was enacted in England, while the 

 first pavement in London was the Strand, constructed in the fourteenth 

 century. 



