far better understood in every way if its route were clearly defined. A thorough understanding of our history is impossible without a knowledge of these highways of trade and war and the strategic points they covered and connected. But of vaster interest is the study of the surging armies of pioneers and the occupation of the great empire conquered by these armies for them. To the emigrant each tawny trail was a path to a Promised Land. They came in thousands and hundreds of thousands over the roads of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. And what roads they were! It was impossible for those pioneer wagons to follow the Indian paths with any exactness. Even Braddock avoided the steeper hills and yet was compelled to lower his wagons from some hills with blocks and tackling--many being demolished at that. And yet to avoid the high ground was inevitably to run into bogs and swamps which were even worse than the hills. We do not have roads a mile wide nowadays, but this was not an unheard-of thing in the days of the pioneer roads. It was preferable to have them a mile wide rather than a mile deep, which would certainly have been the case in some places if one track had been used alone. And even with numberless side tracks, skirting in every direction around the more dangerous localities, horses were not infrequently drowned, and great wagons heavy with freight sometimes sank completely out of sight. The Black Swamp Road through Ohio south of Lake Erie was one of the most important in the West. It is recorded that on one occasion six horses were able to draw a two-wheeled vehicle but fifteen miles in three days. A newspaper of August 31, 1837, affirms that "the road through the Black Swamp has been much of the season impassable. A couple of horses were lost in a mud hole last week. The bottom had fallen out. The driver was unaware of the fact. His horses plunged in and ere they could be extricated were drowned." It is comforting to think there has been some improvement in our country highways. Such accounts as this would have a tendency to influence the most skeptical.