No. 144.] 75 



The Via Flaminia, the Via Aurelia and the Via Appia are well 

 known in history, and a portion of the latter is still in a state of 

 good preservation. 



Julius Csesar communicated from Rome with all the chief towns 

 of his empire — not roads of the same unfinished kind as those 

 used in the present age called " country roads" — but roads paved 

 in the most substantial manner with a superstructure of hewn 

 stone, and during the last African war a road of this character 

 was built from Spain through Gaul to the Alpsj that great road 

 or military thoroughfare was followed by others communicating 

 with it, that passed through Savoy, Dauphine and Provence, 

 through Germany, every part of Spain, and even to Constanti- 

 nople, through Asia, Hungary, Macedonia, and to the mouths of 

 the Danube. These roads, or lines of communication, reaching 

 the shores of the continent of Europe, were continued at corre- 

 sponding points of the neigboring islands and continent. Sicily, 

 Corsica, Sardinia, England, Africa and Asia were intersected and 

 penetrated by roads forming the continuation of the great Euro- 

 pean lines. Thus the first paved roads of England were the 

 work of the Romans, but they were uncared for by the Britons, 

 fell rapidly into decay, and it was many centuries afterwards be- 

 fore the strides of civilization marked its progress by the re- 

 introduction of good roads. 



In 1763, a short time since when compared with the age of the 

 Via Appia, there was not one good road in any part of England. 



The construction of such roads by the Romans, so lost upon the 

 early Britons, while they were adequate to their wants or re- 

 quirements at that time, can be of no service to the present age 

 except by example of the magnificent and liberal manner in 

 which they were extended, for although a portion of the Via Ap- 

 pia is still witnessed and passed ov^r by the astonished traveller, 

 and quoted by him when he returns home for its extraordinary 

 durability, (having been constructed nearly 2,300 years ago,) it 

 would be of no material or durable service for a modern city in 

 North America, where commercial prosperity and immense traflftc 

 demanded a substantial pavement. The large blocks in a climate 



