ROADS AND BRIDGES 2/3 



ing in Europe. They projected and partially completed 

 a great national highway from the Atlantic seaboard 

 westward, finishing it into Indiana. They built road- 

 ways between large cities and planned many more. In 

 addition to this, the farmers were making efforts to con- 

 nect their farms with nearby towns and villages, with the 

 great turnpikes, and with the markets on seaboard, on 

 the larger lakes and on rivers and canals. In many 

 instances, the only means of securing roads was for 

 companies to construct them and charge toll, such com- 

 panies often securing a bonus from villages and towns. 

 During the first half of the nineteenth century, the im- 

 provements of transportation were in three directions; 

 namely, wagon roads, canals and rivers. But about the 

 middle of the century railway transportation began to 

 assume great importance as a practicable feature, and it 

 grew so rapidly that the development in other lines of 

 transportation took minor places. Recently electric 

 roads across the country have also entered the field, and 

 again attention is drawn by the steel track from the 

 wagon road and canal. But this is much more than 

 counteracted by the new vehicles, the bicycle and the 

 automobile, which have helped to awaken a new en- 

 gineering era in highway building. The improvement 

 of canals, rivers, harbors and water shipping generally 

 has also taken on wonderful activity. Water transporta- 

 tion on lakes and canals, especially, is proving important 

 as a means of cheaply moving such bulky freight as coal, 

 iron, grain, lumber and stone, and in many cases fur- 

 nishes corrective competition to railway transportation. 

 The intercontinental highway project was abandoned, 

 as were also most of the plans for making superior wagon 

 roads between cities and towns. In half .a century 

 several railroads have connected the Atlantic with the 

 Pacific, and many railroads have connected the North 

 and South, while innumerable branch lines and trolley 



