AMERICAN INSTITUTE 659 



A brief notice of the most distinguished works of this kind will 

 perhaps be useful. I therefore select the following for conside- 

 ration, viz: 



The invention of Paved Roads appears to have been by the 

 Carthagenians, from whom the Romans borrowed it in their long 

 Punic wars, and greatly improved them. Their two first paved 

 roads were the Appian and the Flaminian and Aurelian. The 

 first was made 2,000 years ago, and is in parts good yet. Julius 

 Caesar, before the birth of our Saviour, made paved roads from 

 the city of Rome to all the chief towns — one through Spain and 

 France, as far as the Alps, over a thousand miles long — a paved 

 road through Germany, and to Constantinople, and another 

 through Hungary, to the mouths of the river Danube, another 

 through Asia, through Sicily, Corsica, England, Africa, Sardinia. 

 These gigantic works were not mere paths for the feet of horses 

 and wheels of carriages, on the natural surface, but equal to 

 those of modern engineers, firm, durable roads, through forests, 

 through excavated hills and mountains, over raised valleys, 

 rivers on bridges, over drained marshes, &c. 



The Chinese, 1,300 years ago, made suspension bridges over 

 chasms 500 feet deep, and horsemen rode over them ! 



The first artificial road of England was made by the Romans. 

 A grand trunk road from north to south, and another nearly at 

 right angles with it from east to west, with branches from these 

 trunk roads, in every direction. The Roman road called Watling 

 street, was from Rideborough, in Kent, and through London to 

 Chester. Ermine street, so called, was a Roman road from Lon- 

 don to Lincoln, to Carlisle, and thence to Scotland. Fossway 

 was from Eatli to Ermine street. The road Ikenald was from 

 Norwich to Dorsetshire. When the Romans left, the Britons let 

 tliese roads decay, and they made no new ones. For many cen- 

 turies the roads became rude paths for horses and pedestrians 

 ■over natural ground, much like the savage tracks and patlis of 

 American Indians. Charles lid first, by law, established a 

 turnpike ! 



