This will form a tentative system. Observation upon the roads themselves will now be necessary. A reconnaissance survey may be made quite rapidly from an automobile. Two men are necessary. The engineer will ordinarily drive while the topographer will be supplied with a clip board and ruled sheets of paper. The straight line up the center of the sheet represents the roadway. Small squares on the sheets represent distances and areas. The scale should be made according to the work. On a road with few houses and few topographical features to be recorded 1 inch to the mile might be sufficient. With more houses, and other features, 1 inch to the quarter mile might be none too much. As speedometers (odometers) usually read to a tenth of a mile cross-section paper with ten smaller divisions equal to one larger is convenient. The engineer will observe features and the recorder will record them as the machine is driven along. The miles may be marked off on the sheets ahead then very quickly by a series of notations, such as a [Illustration] for a farm house, a dot with a roof over it [Illustration] for a school house, a steeple or cross on top [Illustration] makes a church. A crossing wagon road [Illustration], railroad track [Illustration], a trolley line [Illustration], stream [Illustration], and so on. Written explanations can be made along the margin where necessary. The reconnaissance survey should cover all routes on the tentative map together with alternative or competitive routes and others when found to be worthy of consideration. The record will show all farm houses within a prescribed limiting distance of the roadway, factories, stone quarries, sand and gravel pits, schoolhouses, and churches. All intersecting roads, railroads, trolleys, mail routes, creeks, canals, rivers, drainage and irrigation ditches, culverts and bridges, together with the approximate angle of crossing the highway. Note should be made whether grade crossings may be eliminated by underground or overhead crossings, or by change of route. The character of the soil whether clay, loam, gumbo, or sand, when it differs from the general run of soil should be recorded, also hills, swamps, bad condition generally with brief notes as to how they may be bettered. Turns in the road itself may be noted by an angle thus [Illustration], [Illustration], [Illustration], [Illustration]. Where no turn is shown, straight away is understood. Other information and natural or artificial features that may prove interesting or helpful will suggest themselves for record as the survey proceeds. Of course the mileage of each route as measured by the odometer or speedometer from fixed and known points on the map will be taken. By tabulating and mapping the information recorded it will be possible to get at the comparative merits of alternative routes.