ANCIENT AND MODERN ROADS. 



weight of the cart. By this simple expedient, therefore, the art 

 of transport was improved in the ratio of one to ten ; in other 

 words, the transport which before was effected at the cost of ten 

 pounds, was, with this expedient, reduced to the cost of one 

 pound. 



2. The adoption of expedients for the maintenance of commerce so 

 obvious as roads, would seem to be inevitable among a people who 

 are not actually in a state of barbarism. Nevertheless, we find 

 that not only was the construction of good roads for commercial 

 purposes of comparatively recent date, but that, even at the 

 present day, a very large portion of that part of the world called 

 civilised, is unprovided with them. With the exception of certain 

 parts of Europe, the French colony of Algeria, and the United 

 States, the entire surface of the world is still without this means 

 of intercourse. 



It is calculated that, of the entire inhabited part of the globe, 

 roads do not exist in more than tico-sevcnths. The extensive 

 empire of Russia, with the exception of one or two main com- 

 munications, such as that between Petersburg and Moscow, is 

 without them. In general, the only practicable communications 

 through this vast territory are effected in winter on the surface of 

 the frozen snow by sledges. On the return of summer, when the 

 snow has disappeared, the communications become extremely 

 difficult, slow, and expensive. Spain is scarcely better supplied 

 with roads than Russia, nor do we find much improvement in the 

 practice of transport in Italy. Until recently, Corsica possessed 

 no communications of this sort; horses and mules were the 

 common means of communication and interchange in that island 

 until the French government constructed some roads. 



3. The roads constructed by the Romans and Egyptians will 

 probably be referred to as instances of an early advance in this 

 art. But these great monuments of antiquity, though serving 

 incidentally, to some extent, as means of commerce, were 

 constructed for exclusively military purposes. 



4. The most ancient roads which are recorded in history, are those 

 constructed by order of Semiramis, throughout the extent of her 

 empire. It would seem, however, that the commerce of that day 

 did not find these communications suitable to its objects ; for it is 

 certain that, at the epoch at which Tyre and Carthage were 

 signalised for their enterprise, their commerce was almost exclu- 

 sively carried on by the coasting navigation of the Mediter- 

 ranean. 



5. Notwithstanding the advanced stage to which civilisation had 

 arrived in Greece, the means of internal communication in that 

 country remained in a state of great imperfection. This may in 



o2 19" 



