during the dark ages, when arts were lost, when popular learning disappeared or found shelter only in cloisters and convents, when commercial intercourse between nations vanished, and when civilization itself lay fallen and inert, these magnificent Roman roads were unused and left to the destructive agencies of time and the elements of Nature. Rains and floods washed away and inundated their embankments; forests and rank vegetation overgrew and concealed them; winds covered them with dust and heaps of sand; and little by little in the process of ages their hard surfaces and massive foundations were somewhat broken and caused to partially decay. That their remains still exist in every part of the world which ever bore up the Roman legions is conclusive evidence that they were built by master workmen who realized that they were responsible to posterity and to the eternal powers.

In China, at one time, labor was so abundant that it was kept employed in constructing great walls and ponderous roads. The road-bed was raised several feet above the level of the ground by an accumulation of great stones, and then covered with huge granite blocks. It was found that in time the wheels of vehicles wore deep ruts in the stones, while the travelled part of the road became so smooth that it was almost impossible for animals to stand thereon.

In the ancient empires of Mexico and Peru, where there were no beasts fit for draught or for riding, magnificent roads were constructed for the treble purpose of facilitating the march of armies, accommodating the public traffic, and ministering to the convenience and luxury of the lordly rulers. In Peru two of these roads were from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles long, extending from Quito to Chili,—one by the borders of the ocean, and the other over the grand plateau by the mountains. Prescott says: "The road over the plateau was conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; galleries were cut for leagues through the living rock; rivers were crossed by means of bridges that swung suspended in the air; precipices were scaled by stairways hewn out of the native bed; ravines of hideous depth were filled up with solid masonry; in short, all the difficulties that beset a wild and mountainous region, and which might appall the most courageous engineer of modern times, were encountered and successfully overcome. Stone pillars in the manner of European milestones were erected at stated intervals of somewhat more than a league all along the route. Its breadth scarcely exceeded twenty feet. It was built of heavy flags of freestone, and in some parts, at least, covered with a bituminous cement, which time has made harder than the stone itself. In some places where the ravines had been filled up with masonry, the mountain torrents, wearing on it for ages, have gradually eaten a way through the base, and left the superincumbent mass—such is the cohesion of the materials—still spanning the valley like an arch.

"Another great road of the Incas lay through the level country between the Andes and the ocean. It was constructed in a different manner, as demanded by the nature of the ground, which was for the most part low, and much of it sandy. The causeway was raised on a high embankment of earth, and defended on either side by a parapet or wall of clay; and trees and odoriferous shrubs were planted along the margin, regaling the sense of the traveller with their perfume, and refreshing him by their shades, so grateful under the burning sky of the tropics.

"The care of the great roads was committed to the districts through which they passed, and a large number of hands was constantly employed to keep them in repair. This was the more easily done in a country where the mode of travelling was altogether on foot; though the roads are said to have been so nicely constructed that a carriage might have rolled over them as securely as on any of the great roads of Europe. Still, in a region where the elements of fire and water are both actively at work in the business of destruction, they must without constant supervision have gradually gone to decay. Such has been their fate under the Spanish conquerors, who took no care to enforce the admirable system for their preservation adopted by the Incas. Yet the broken portions that still survive here and there, like the fragments of the great Roman roads scattered over Europe, bear evidence of their primitive grandeur, and have drawn forth eulogium from the discriminating traveller; for Humboldt, usually not profuse in his panegyrics, says, 'The roads of the Incas were among the most useful and stupendous works ever executed by man.'"

With the revival of human thought and civilization after the Middle Ages, the improvement of the roads engaged the attention of public and scientific men, and became once more an object of government; but for a long time the rulers who concerned themselves about roads thought more about repressing the crimes of violence and extortion thereon than they did about improving their condition for travel. The first act of the English Parliament relative to the improvement of roads in the kingdom was in 1523; yet in 1685 most of the roads in England were in a deplorable condition.

Macaulay says that on the best highways at that time the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous, and the way often such that it was hardly possible to distinguish it in the dark from the unenclosed heath and fen which lay on both sides. It was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the road was available for wheeled vehicles; often the mud lay deep on the right and on the left, and only a narrow track of firm ground rose above the quagmire. It happened almost every day that coaches stuck fast until a team of cattle could be procured from some neighboring farm to tug them out of the slough. But to the honor of England, this condition of her roads was not allowed to continue very long. Although her progress in trade and prosperity has been marvellously rapid, yet such progress can be measured by the improvement of her roads, which are now unsurpassed anywhere in the world.

Beyond question, internal communications are of vital importance to every nation, and good roads are a prime necessity to every town or city. A good road is always a source of comfort and pleasure to every traveller. It is also a source of great saving each year in the wear and tear of horse-flesh, vehicles, and harnesses. Good roads to market and neighbors increase the price of farm produce, and bring people into business relations and good fellowship, and thereby enhance in value every homestead situated in their neighborhood. They cause a proper distribution of population between town and country. For many years in this country there has been a movement of population from the rural districts into the cities and manufacturing villages. Many ancestral homesteads have been deserted for promising "fresh woods and pastures new" in the commercial world. This centralization of population is evidently a violation of economic laws, and when carried too far results in business depression, in the multiplication of tramps, and in the origination and development of industrial and social troubles. The remedy for this state of affairs is found in the readjustment and proper distribution of population between town and country. When men, sick of waiting on waning business prospects, turn to the soil as their only refuge from non-employment and surplus productions of factories, and reoccupy and rehabilitate deserted or run-down farms, then business revives, and the wheels of industry and enterprise revolve steadily and with increased velocity at each revolution. Bad roads have a tendency to make the country disagreeable as a dwelling-place, and a town which is noted for its bad roads is shunned by people in search of rural homes. On the other hand,