construction. Of these the marvelous Columbia River Highway in Oregon is easily supreme.

Travelers tell us that nowhere in Europe is the Columbia River Highway surpassed, not excepting the famous Axenstrasse at Lake Lucerne, Switzerland. This picturesque American highway, with its perfect pavement, skirts the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge, bridging chasms, tunneling cliffs, up hill and down, and with such engineering skill of construction that nowhere does the grade exceed 5 per cent. From Latourelle to Crown Point, two miles, the rise is continuous and totals 600 feet. From Portland to Chanticleer, twenty-two miles, the rise is 875 feet. A 5-per-cent grade, therefore, is something of an achievement. In one place it was necessary to build eight-tenths of a mile of road in crossing forty acres of ground, accomplishing a drop of 204 feet within that limited area, without exceeding a 5-per-cent grade. At this point the road parallels itself five times. Yet there is a tangent between every two

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curves, the shortest of which is 30 feet long, and the curves themselves have radii of 100 feet. It is possible to motor over "The Loops,' as this portion of the highway is called, at a speed of forty miles an hour, assuming that the authorities do not catch one at it.

At Crown Point the road circles a rock on a 110-foot radius, rounding 225 degrees of the circle. This rock is 725 feet high, higher than the Woolworth Building in New York, and drops sheer to the river. From this point of the highway it is possible to see thirty-five miles up and down the picturesque stream. One of the features of this highway beautiful is a series of concrete bridges, each of special design, no two alike. The bridge over Shepard's Dell is a single arch, 170 feet from pier to pier, 281 feet from the brook below to the arch. At Moffet Creek is the largest three-hinged flatarch bridge in the world. The arch rises only 17 feet in its reach of 170 feet. An interesting light is thrown on the expansive qualities of concrete by the

fact that the center of this bridge is four inches higher on the hottest days than it is on the coldest.

Shepard's Dell was owned by a man named Shepard, who, although poor in a financial way, refused to sell the spot which his wife had loved, but gave it to the county as a perpetual memorial to her. This dell is only one of many picturesque scenes along the highway, where cascades ceaselessly tumble in wondrous beauty from the top of a cliff towering above. In all, twenty-two waterfalls can be seen from the road between Crown Point and Hood River. The largest of these, Multnomah Falls, has a sheer drop of 620 feet and a second drop of 120 feet. One tunnel, at Mitchell's Point, 385 feet long, is provided with five windows, each approximately thirty feet square, cut through solid rock. It is the only tunnel in the world with five windows, the famous tunnel of the Axenstrasse in Switzerland having but three.

In the construction of this remarkable highway the names of four men stand out prominent. Samuel Hill is said to have conceived and promoted the idea. Samuel C. Lancaster, a Portland engineer, was placed in charge of the work

when Multnomah County undertook the monumental task. monumental task. Fortunately, Mr. Lancaster was an artist as well as an engineer, and at every point of the work he has been mindful of the scenic effect. He never could have realized his dream, however, had it not been for John B. Yeon and Simon Benson, two publicspirited citizens of Portland who had acquired great wealth by way of the lumber camp.

In order to get results, the County Board gave Yeon the official title of roadmaster, and for two years this man of wealth gave practically his whole time. to the work of building this highway. He not only worked without pay, but actually put a good-sized fortune of his own into the enterprise. Yeon started. his friend Benson, who was chairman of the State Highway Board, out after right of way. Benson made short work of the matter. He had a very simple plan, which is here commended to men of wealth in other states. Whenever he found an obdurate farmer who would not give right of way across his property, Benson bought the needed land with his own money and made the county a present of it.

Whenever Lancaster, the artist-engi

neer, yearned for something outside the appropriation in order to put a finishing touch on a bit of scenic effect—as, for example, an artistic concrete footbridge spanning the chasm between the two drops of Multnomah Falls-he would take either Benson or Yeon, as it happened, out over the highway and casually remark that such an improvement would look fine.

In this connection Florida's Tamiami Trail, already mentioned, is worthy of more extended discussion, not because of its beauty, but because of the difficulties attending its construction and the romantic interest which attaches to the Everglades of Florida and their fastdisappearing Seminole Indians. J. B. McCrary of Atlanta, president of the engineering corporation which is build

"Oh, maybe five thousand dollars." "Put it in and send the bills to me." Good men, those, to have in a county! May their tribe increase!

However, this extraordinary highway was not blasted out of solid rock at enormous expense solely for picturesque effects or the attraction of tourists. There is only one other instance in the world where a great river cuts a mountain range at right angles and practically at sea level. The other instance is the Congo in Africa. The tide affects the Columbia 140 miles back from the sea. Columbia River Highway is not only the highway beautiful, but the sole outlet of an inland empire. The river drains 350,000 square miles, and Portland is the port of entry.

America has many scenic highways of which we can feel proud. Cody Trail, leading into Yellowstone Park from the east, is justly famed for its beauty. Mohawk Trail, which climbs the Hoosac Mountain range in northwestern Massachusetts, is deservedly popular. Ohio is building a great highway along the west shore of Ohio River which eventually will reach from Marietta to East Liverpool. Its cost will average $125,000 a mile and reach $200,000 in places. Those who travel the pavement will look up and down that famous stream and across to the beautiful and rugged hills of West Virginia, on the opposite shore. There are many others, existing or in prospect, but for years to come Columbia River Highway will stand as the highwater mark in American scenic road construction.

VOL. CXLV.-No. 865.-5

accompanied him, are said to be the only white men who ever crossed the Everglades in a straight line. This feat they accomplished in preparation for road construction.

The Tamiami Trail, named for the cities of Tampa and Miami, is more astonishing than it sounds. Can you visualize it? A stone road laid more than fifty miles through the Everglades of history and romance; twenty-six miles without a curve, and throughout the twenty-six miles not a human habitation! A road traversing uncharted regions of swamp and morass, where hideous alligators burrow in slime; where countless mosquitoes swarm, armed with augers, gimlets, and other murderous instruments; where dense growths of sawgrass stand head high, so tough of fiber and sharp of edge that it will tear ordinary clothing to tatters, not to mention the flesh beneath!

It sounds impossible, but such is the Tamiami Trail, which eventually will carry tourists through the Everglades, across from the Dixie Highway on the east coast, to connect with an excellent road leading to Tampa, going from coast to coast in 150 miles, whereas at present it takes 800 miles of travel. This is said to be the largest road project, considering the difficulties, ever undertaken in the Southern states.

The work consists of dredging a drainage canal straight through the Everglades and throwing up the underlying rock into a paralleling roadbed, twentyfive feet wide from berm to berm. Where there are only eighteen inches or less of muck above the rock, the muck is not

separated from the stone; but where the overburden exceeds eighteen inches it must be taken out before rock for the road is excavated. At first there was not much muck to be disposed of, but as the work progressed toward the interior the deposit grew deeper and deeper until it became necessary to take out seven feet of fertility before getting at the rock at all.

From start to finish through the Everglades there will not be a single bridge except one small wooden structure above an Indian water trail through which Seminoles have pushed their dugouts for countless centuries. This bridge was not in the plans until one morning when the dredging crew were startled to find a band of excited savages waiting for them. The Indians were not after scalps, however. They demanded a bridge across their prehistoric waterway, and they got it. The untutored red man was unable to visualize the white man's canal. Already, however, the old water trail has been abandoned, and the Indians use the straight canal as far as it has been completed.

Figures and description convey little idea of the enormity of this road-building industry which has sprung up within the last decade. Statements that $800,000,000 was expended in road construction during 1921, and that a round billion will be expended during 1922, roll off our post-war intellects like water from a duck's back, and when we attempt to express this great thing in terms of social and economic efficiency the mind becomes utterly bewildered.

We know in a general way that ancient Egypt could not have achieved the Pyramids and her greatness but for her good roads. We know that Rome was "mistress of the world" largely because of her good roads. We know that France was able to check that first devastating onrush of Germany because of her superb roads. And, knowing these things, there may come to us some faint glimmerings of what the next ten years will bring to the United States in the way of military protection, economic progress, and greater national solidarity which will come from the increasing travel of the people.

MR.

V

R. SPOKESLY, in a state of considerable astonishment, sat by a balconied upper window and tried to get his recent experiences into some sort of focus. That last remark of Mr. Dainopoulos, that he had married an Englishwoman himself, had dislocated his guest's faculties, so that Mr. Spokesly was unable to note clearly by what means he had arrived at his present position, a balconied window on his right and in front of him a woman lying on a sofa-a woman whose brown hair, extraordinarily long and fine, was a glossy pile pressed into the pillow, and whose thin hand he had just relinquished.

"Well," he said, as Mr. Dainopoulos came forward with a lamp, his swart and damaged features giving him the air of a ferocious genie about to perform some nefarious experiment-"well, I must say I'm surprised."

Mrs. Dainopoulos continued to gaze straight out into the darkness over the Gulf.

"Of course," agreed her husband, agreed her husband, seating himself and reaching for a large brier pipe. "Of course. And I'll bet you'd be still more surprised if you only knew. Eh, Alice?" He screwed up one eye and looked prodigiously sly at his wife with the other, his palms slowly rubbing up some tobacco. Mrs. Dainopoulos did not remove her eyes from the darkness beyond the shore. She only murmured.

"Never mind that now, Boris."

"But it ain't anything to be ashamed of, you know," he returned, earnestly, packing his pipe in a way that made Mr. Spokesly want to snatch it from him and do it properly.

"I know, but it wouldn't interest Mr. Spokesly, I'm quite certain," she muttered, and she suddenly looked at their visitor and smiled. It reassured that gentleman, as it was intended to do, that he was in no way responsible for this minute difference of viewpoint between husband and wife. Mr. Spokesly smiled too.

"Don't mind me," he remarked, lighting a cigarette and offering the match to Mr. Dainopoulos. After sucking valiantly for a while and achieving a small red glow in one corner of the bowl, the latter rose.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said at length, and looked at his pipe, which was already out. "I'll go in and see Malleotis for a while. He'll be back by now. And you two can have a little talk."

"Well, don't be all night. You know, when you and Mr. Malleotis get talking business . . .

The woman on the couch paused, regarding her husband as he bent his head over her. Mr. Dainopoulos suddenly put his pipe in his pocket and put his hands on either side of the pillow.

Mr. Spokesly could see nothing save the man's broad, humped shoulders. There was a moment of silence. Mr. Spokesly, very much embarrassed, looked out of the window. When he turned his head again Mr. Dainopoulos