Please see the Transcriber’s Notes at the end of this text. Elements printed in italics or in boldface have been transcribed between _underscores_ and =equal signs= respectively. Small capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS. Superscript and subscribt texts have been transcribed as ^{text} and _{text}. Some formulas contain italic letters followed by subscript indices; these will show two underscores, as in _T__{a}. HIGHWAYS AND HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION [Illustration: © _Major Hamilton Maxwell_ © _Underwood and Underwood_ STORM KING HIGHWAY A Great Engineering Project Along the Hudson between Cornwall and West Point, N. Y.] HIGHWAYS AND HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION BY GEORGE R. CHATBURN, A.M., C.E. _Professor of Applied Mechanics and Machine Design Lecturer on Highway Engineering The University of Nebraska_ NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT 1923, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY _Printed in the United States of America_ PREFACE The following pages on Highways and Highway Transportation do not pretend to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject, but rather a glimpse of the vast development of the humble road and its office as an agency for transportation. Possibly the grandeur of the mountains is best appreciated by one who lives among them, who climbs their acclivitous heights, who daily experiences their power and majesty, and measures their magnitude by grim muscular exertion. But, even so, it would be foolish to contend that he who gets his information from the seat of a Pullman car receives no benefit from the hasty glimpse, or, that his imagination is not quickened and cultured by the experience. In writing this book, then, I have had constantly in mind the myriads of people who have not the time, and possibly not the facilities, to search the pages of the literature of the past for the origin and development, or to work out their present importance, of our amplification of roads and of road uses. It is felt that many of these people laudably desire a conversational knowledge of the origin, evolution and present status of highway transportation, even though it be glimpsed by a very rapid passage through a very large subject. The primary objects have therefore been, to sketch briefly and simply the development of the transportation systems of the United States, to indicate their importance and mutual relations, to present some practical methods used in the operation of highway transport and to make occasional suggestions for the betterment of the road as a usable machine for the benefit and pleasure of mankind.