FROM CART TO AUTOMOBILE 



As regards good roads, these are, to be sure, no mod- 

 em invention, since the Romans had carried the art 

 of road-building to a very high degree of perfection. 

 The integrity of the Roman Empire depended very 

 largely upon the highways that linked all parts of its 

 circumference with the Imperial centre; and in a per- 

 fectly literal sense all its roads led to Rome. The 

 Roman roadbed was constructed of several layers of 

 stone, and it was one of the most resistant and perma- 

 nent structures ever devised. As late as the sixteenth 

 century of our era there were no roads worthy of the 

 name in England except the remains of those con- 

 structed many centuries before by the Roman occu- 

 pants. It was not until well toward the close of the 

 eighteenth century that Macadam and Telford devised 

 methods of road-making whereby broken stone and 

 gravel, pounded to form a smooth surface, gave the 

 modem world roadbeds that were in any way com- 

 parable to those early ones of the Romans. 



This development of road-building corresponded, 

 naturally enough, with an advance in the art of carriage 

 building, and the increased popularity of stage coaches. 

 We are told that about 1650 the average rate of speed 

 of the stage wagons in England was only four miles an 

 hour; whereas the stage coaches moved over the im- 

 proved roadbeds of the nineteenth century at an aver- 

 age speed of about eight miles an hour, which was 

 sometimes increased to eleven miles. After about the 

 year 1836, however, the stage coach was rapidly dis- 

 placed by the steam railway, and the interest in road- 

 beds somewhat abated until brought again prominently 



US3] 



