Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1898-08-19
FRENCH HIGHWAYS.
BEAUTY AND UTILITY CONSIDERED IN
THEIR CONSTRUCTION.

tory Road-Aim of Good Roads.
Every one who has seen anything of
the roads of France has admired the
way they are constructed and the way
they are kept in repair. Not only are
the roads themselves a thing of beauty,
but they seem to have been cut through
the most picturesque parts of the coun-
try, through thick forests, woods, pas
lures green, cultivated fields and where
one can feast the eye with the accidental
beauties of the horizon.
1.-Two principal things must be looked
to in the construction of road said Nj.
aries of the ministry of public works, to
correspondent of the Brooklyn Eagle,
"they are beauty and utility. Beauty is
obtained by the planting of trees on
each side, which, by the way, has also
It's utility, and the sight OF smooth,
even road that winds along like golden
ribbon through green fields and woods,
which brings the comforting thought to
a native that his people are happy and
prosperous, that there is well being
where the road begins, where it ends
and all along where it serpentiDes its
way. As for utility, it is hardly neces-
sary to tell you that a road is built to be
used and that its existence ought to be
considered only in so far as it is prac-
ticable.
"Americans, who are considered the
most practical of all people and who
know the value of money, do not need
to be told that anything made must be
made to be useful, useful for length Of
| time as well as for the present moment
| When erecting national edifices, for the
+ sake of economy government must look
to durability. Government has no age.
# cannot say like the flippant Louis XIV,
After us the deluge' 1t cannot say,
u am doing this for this generation. 1t
Unjust act like father who looks forward
to leaving his works to his children and
! his grandchildren in a perfect state,
provided his descendants respect his
works sufficiently afterward to keep
them in good repair. 1t is not enough
to build. What is built must be kept
star ding. That is the principle that
guides US for the keeping of our roads.
We cut very few new roads at present,
and almost all of the money allotted for
that part of the public works goes for
repairs and maintenance of the roads,
which are in better order now than when
they were constructed"
1t is we'll to remind Americans that
France has about as many square miles
as Ohio, and it is only fair to the coun-
i try to compute the money spent on the
roads with the extent of its territory.
There are three kinds of roads in
France, the national, the departmental
and the rural roads. For political as
we'll as commercial considerations it was
Napoleon / who began to look seriously
into the condition of roads and to APP
propriate large sums of money for their
construction and maintenance.
During Napoleon's time national
roads were divided into three classes.
The national treasury betrayed the ex-
pense for the first and second classes.
The third class was built and maintained
by the national and departmental GOV
eminent and the departmental and
rural roads by the departments and
the cOmmunes. With small notifications
the same Napoleonic laws still exist.
After Napoleon's time it was during
the reign of Louis Philippe that special
attention was paid to the building OF
new roads and the voting of yearly
funds for repairs.
According to the accounts put on file
in the ministry of public works there
was total of 3S,000,245 kilometers OF
national roads In France in 1897.
A kilometer is .62l35 of an American
mile. Only about one-eighteenth of the
national roads are paved. The rest are
stone roads-chaussee empierrees.
The building of a national road costs
10000 francs kilometer; 10000 francs
is about $4,000. The repairs and over
seeing cost 500 francs a kilometer pei
year, about SlG0 The sum total of re-
pairs year is 30,OO0,000 francs, about
SG,000,000. The maintenance of the
roads is by special administration
which has numerous qualifications. The
French concern themselves much witt
details, small details. They are not tC
be blamed for this. On the contrary
they are to be praised, for it is onlyswitf
the observance of details that one obtain;
good work. 1t is not only in artistic
things that details count, it is in al
kinds of work.
t Among the many volumes of the evel
increasing encyclopedia of public works
there is one made up of course o.
lectures upon the roads of France, de
livered at the school of public works by
the Inspector general, NJ. Durand Claye
That volume contains precious know
ledge concerning the building and main
tenance of roads, and in one part thu
author says that the following requisites
are necessary to make road satisfactory
a road must be smooth and the as
perities which are unavoidable must b.
smoothed down as much as possible.
1t must be hard and elastic.
1t must have no holes or Tuts.
1t must be constructed upon a resist
ing noncOmpressble soil, in order not t.
give way under heavy loads.