20 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
Board of Highways and Bridges, and although everybody is naturally 
opposed to the multiplication of functions and functionaries, I believe 
that this is a branch of administrative activity which would very quickly 
repay its cost. 
If it be found after mature discussion that the State is not to take up 
the matter directly, then sound public sentiment must be worked up in the 
counties; our commissioners must be pledged to push the question to the 
front, and by electing the right men, our county government will make a 
very good highway board, having the advantage of a thorough knowl¬ 
edge of the peculiarities of their locality, its topography, resources, and 
the nature and extent of its available road material. 
The tools they need are not many: 
A roller, 
A sprinkler, 
A crusher, 
Some screens, 
A plow or two, 
Some scrapers, picks and shovels, 
And in the open country, a grader. 
The road engineer should be the county surveyor. In these days this 
office should be magnified. The incumbent should be a civil engineer, 
something of a geologist, a man versed in the value of things, and all 
this in addition to his knowledge of lands and land lines, a thing of itself 
not to be decried, important as it is in the settling of neighbors’ disputes 
and the quieting of titles. 
Unfortunately, hitherto private land lines have had more than their 
fair weight in controlling the alignment of county roads, to the neglect 
of physical suitability and the convenience of the traveling public. 
A road should, as far as possible, be scientifically located with due re¬ 
gard to direction, drainage and grade. 
Having the contour of the country thoroughly in view, a line involving 
the minimum work consistent with economical service and maintenance 
should be established. This should be done as a whole between govern¬ 
ing points, with no patching or makeshifts. These are always expensive, 
and a road may be ever so good in places that is just as bad as its boggiest 
part. Grades in Texas present very few difficulties, especially in the more 
settled districts, and for that reason it is well to make the most of the 
situation, which can be generally done at a comparatively trifling ex¬ 
pense. That it is worth doing, is clear enough from the following table 
deduced from Mr. Herschell’s able paper on this subject. It presents a 
very different problem from the same question on railroads, for reasons 
too long to go into here, but some of which are indicated by the simple 
