STEEL ROADS FOR COUNTRY DISTRICTS.
At this time of the year, when the frost is coming out of the ground, and nearly all the roads in and around our country towns are long lines of mire, one can not help wondering, when considering the subject of our highways, why the government is not quicker to respond to the appeals for aid in their improvement, and why it does not push the adoption of a system of roads that will last for long periods with but slight expenditure for repairs. Nearly seven years ago, the office of road inquiries of the Department of Agriculture conducted experiments with steel rails on country roads, and made arrangements with a large steel works for the rolling of suitable rails for this purpose. At that time the 8-inch rails for a mile of steel roadway, weighing about 100 tons, could be purchased for about $3,500, and the price has not increased much since. A sample steel road two miles in length between Valentia and Grao, Spain, had then been in use for five years under exceedingly heavy traffic, and had shown splendid results; yet the United States did not, and has not as yet, profited by this experiment in an ordinarily unprogressive foreign country, and we have to-day no steel roads for commercial purposes, save the short section in Murray Street, New York City, laid about a year and a half ago. As for the foreign example mentioned, during the time it had been in use, the annual cost of maintaining the roadbed has been $380 against $5,470 yearly expended to keep the flint stone road which preceded it in repair. The average traffic over this road is 3,200 vehicles per day. This example of a steel road and its lasting qualities is not the only one abroad, but it is the most noteworthy.—Selected.