5 



in the world, the common roads of the United States 

 have been neglected, and are inferior to those of any other 

 civilized countiw in the world. They are deficient in 

 every necessary qualification that is an attribute to a good 

 road; in direction, in slope, in shape and service, and, 

 most of all, in want of repair. By the improvement of these 

 common roads, every branch of our agricultural, commer- 

 cial and manufacturing industries would be materially 

 benefitted. Every article brought to market would be 

 diminished in price, the number of horses necessary as a 

 motive power would be reduced, and, by these and other 

 retrenchments, millions of dollars would be annually 

 saved to the public." 



Testimony to the same effect might be multiplied at 

 great length. There are, to be sure, extenuating circum- 

 stances in the rapid and comparatively scattered nature 

 of our growth, which furnish sound reason why some 

 parts of our land should yet be far short of having per- 

 fected their highways ; but Eastern Massachusetts should 

 be among the last to offer any such excuse for her neglect. 



The history of road-making has been a curious one, 

 presenting, as it does, long intervals when the application 

 of scientific principles, once far advanced, seems to have 

 been for centuries in a* state of arrested development, or 

 even to have become one of the " lost arts." 



More than two thousand years ago, Rome had con- 

 structed a system of roads which, under constant and 

 trying use, with comparatively little repairs, lasted for 

 centuries, and parts of which still exist, a monument to 

 the engineering skill of that early period. But even the 

 Romans are not permitted to have the honor of origi- 

 nating this art, which they so magnificently developed. 

 The inhabitants of Carthage, we are told, stimulated by 



