race. In the stress
of trying times we have discovered in the constitution of our country
latent powers which its framers never dreamed were there. Thus it is
with the humble occupation of road-building. A road constructed for the
convenience of some primitive community or to gratify the caprice of
some rich man or lordly ruler becomes often in after years an Appian
Way for public travel and commercial intercourse.

A road may be located in one of three ways. It may be laid out in a
straight line by crossing lowlands in the mud and going over hills at
steep grades. The ancient Britons, like the early settlers in this
country, established their homesteads and villages on commanding
situations, and ran their roads and bridle-paths in direct courses by
their habitations. The Romans, possessors of great wealth and abundant
slave-labor, built their military and public roads in direct lines from
place to place, regardless of expense. In this way they shortened
distances somewhat, but their roads must have been constructed at
enormous expense in money and labor. Their roads were marvels of
engineering skill and workmanship, which even now, after the lapse of
eighteen centuries, impress every thoughtful observer with the idea
that he is in the presence of the work of the immortals. They threw
arched bridges of solid masonry over rivers and across ravines; they
cut tunnels through mountains, and sometimes carried their roads
underground for the sole purpose of shelter from the sun; they levelled
heights and made deep cuts through hills; and when they came to a marsh
they built a causeway high enough and strong enough to make it safe and
dry at all seasons of the year. This mode of location is still followed
in the Latin countries of Italy, France, and Spain, where many of the
roads are identical with the old Roman roads.

The other mode of locating a highway is to seek the best attainable
grade the country will permit of by winding through valleys and around
and across hills. There is obviously one advantage to a perfectly
straight road between two places: _it is the nearest route_. But this
is about the only advantage a straight road has over a curved one. In a
hilly country a straight road is frequently no shorter than a curved
one, because the distance around a hill is generally no greater than
over it, as the length of a pail-handle is the same whether it is
vertical or in a horizontal position. In an uneven country a strai