. . . BUL.LETIN -OF THE­ UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. DECEMBER, 1889. OONTENTS: The Hiet.ory and Burden of Taxation Imposed by the State of Texas and by the United States.. . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....................... 0. M. ROBERTS. Roads and Material for their Construction in the Black Prairie Region of Texe.s . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ROBT. T. HILL. THE HISTORY AND BURDEN OF TAXATION. BY 0. M. ROBERTS. Taxes are contributions in money, imposed upon individuals for the sup­port of government. The pui-pose for which these exactions are ma.de de­pends upon the nature and objects for which the government is instituted and carried on. In some countries governments are organized to confer special privileges, advantages, benefits, and protection upon the favored few by imposing burdens upon the many. The disparity between the two classes may become so great that the only consideration given by the government to the mass of individuals for their contributions in the shape of taxes is the right to live and to work. They a.re protected in that right as necessary in­struments in sustaining the government, so administered as to promote the prosperity, grandeur, and happiness of its favorites. The necessary result of this is, when the population becomes dense and the avenues of employment are all crowded, that the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, until the very poor must run the gauntlet through life between the poorhouse and the prison. That condition of things, approximately or in full maturity, is the criterion by which such a government may be known, whatever may be its form, so called, as surely as the tree is judged by its fruit. This state of things, existing in a greater or less degree in the different countries of Eu­rope, has been for years past driving hundreds of thousands of their people to the United States and to other parts of the world. May not the vast accumulations of wealth here recently acquired in the hands of the few, and the widespread murmurings and discontent of the many, give warning to us that even in this free country there may be malign influences at work strongly tending to produce the same result ? It has been estimated that there have been over twenty thousand strikes during the ten years last past, and during that time the protection of nearly every material interest has been sought by a separate combination of those persons who are engaged in it, thereby exhibiting society, in regard to its pecuniary condition, as divided mto almost innumerable contending antagonisms. This phase of society is new in this country, and its origin and existence must be traced to the man­agement of public affairs on the subject of taxation by our governments, so long continued as to inaugurate the process of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The American doctrine originally was the very reverse of this, it being that the government was instituted and existed for the people, anu not the people for the government. This doctrine was established when the States dissolved their connection with England and founded their govern­ments upon the sovereignty of the people in each State. The expressions used in their constitutions, defining the relation between the government ;ind the people, were different in different States, though intended to announce the same principle in effect. They were such as follows: "All power is in­herent in the people; all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit." "All men are born equally free and inde­pendent, and have certain natural, inherent, and inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, pos­sessing, and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness." "All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from them, the several officers of government vested with authority, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, are their substitutes and agents, and are at all times accountable to them." " No man or corporation, or association of men have any other title to obtain advantages or peculiar or exclusive privi­leges distinct from those of the community than what arises from the consid­eration of services rendered to the public." "Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or any class of men." "Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, ac· cording to the standing law. He is obliged consequently to contribute his share to the expenses of this protection, to give his personal service or an equivalent when necessary. But no part of the property of an individual can with justice be taken from him or applied to the public use without his own consent or that of the representative body of the people." Their constitutions did not confer upon their legislatures any power to levy taxes, except that which was implied from the grant of the power of legisla­tion; nor, except in Maryland, did they contain any express direction as to the mode of levying taxes, or as to the kind of taxes to be ·levied. Doubtless reliance was pla.ced upon the announcement of the general principles in their bill of .rights as guides to their legislatures in justly imposing taxes upon the the people; as then representation and taxation would go hand in hand and measures would be carried by majorities of themselves; a.nd those who should be selected to make and execute their laws were their agents; and the equality of all men and the equal protection of their rights of person and property were secured; and as government could only demand from the in­dividual an adequate compensation for such protection, and could not impose burdens upon one man or class of men for the private advantage or profit of another man or class of men, the people of the several States had a right to expect that the burden of taxation upon each person would be made to cor­respond with the rights of person and property protected for him by the government. In that event a poll tax should be imposed upon every one · and a tax upon his property in proportion to its value, and an equitable occupation tax upon persons in trade who might handle transient pl:'operty that could not be reached by an annual ad valorem tax. Such a system of taxation would have been recognized as just by the great mass of fair­minded men. Rulers of men of all kinds and everywhere, whose rule is impartially just, will meet with a cordial acquiescence and approbation from those whom they govern; whereas partiality, favoritism, shown directly or indirectly to one class of men, and prejudice and disfavor shown to another class, will inevitably, sooner or later, engender antipathies, disgust, jealousies, discontent, strife, and injustice. ·The people of those States in founding their government upon the rule of even-handed justice as between man and man, controlled by a majority of themselves, could hardly then anticipate that the democratic majority could be manipulated so as to exercise the most irresponsible and flagrant injustice over minorities, and sometimes even over the great mass of the people, for the special benefit of favorite classes of persons. They could then hardly anticipate that the agents whom they would put in power to fill the offices, legislative, executive, and judicial, might by their combined co-operation con­strue their powers so as to pile precedent on precedent in the assumption of powers not intended to be granted to them, and to impose burdens upon the people by way of taxes so imposed as to directly or indirectly accomplish objects not embraced in their constitutions. They may well be excused for not having understood then what one hundred years of experience in free democratic government might have taught them, and enabled them to have guarded their interests by specific directions, restrictions, and limitations upon the power of taxation granted to their governments. Texas has in the main carried out the just principle by making the burdens of taxation upon the people correspond with the protection of their rights of person and of property. Having established a democratic representative republic in 1836, the firet direct tax imposed by its Congress was an ad valorem tax of one-half of one per cent on all real, personal, or mixed property, a ppll tax of one dollar, and tax on occupations proportioned generally to the amount and character of their business; and in levying duties upon imports the same rule was gen­erally followed. The law having been changed in 1840 by imposing specific taxes on articles of personal property, it was determined by the convention of 1845 to establish permanently the mode of imposing taxes by a provision in the Constitution of the State requiring all property to be taxed according to its value, and authorizing the Legislature to lay an income tax, and to tax all persons pursuing any occupation, trade, or profession, except that those following agricultural and mechanical pursuits should not pay an occupation tax. So thoroughly and universally has this ad valorem tax on property been approved that it has furnished the principal means to support the gov· ernment of Tens for more than fifty years. Having been adopted in the Constitution of 1845 it was continued in those of 1861, 1866, 1869, and 1876, and if it had not met fully the sense of justice of the people it would not have been continued so long when there were so many opportunities for changing it. This, then, is the verdict of the people of Texas, that as the object of gov­ernment is the protection of persons and property, a tax upon persons and their property should be levied and collected to support it. In our present State Constitution are found directions, restrictions, and limitations upon the power of taxation that confine it strictly to taxes levied for the accomplish· ment of such objects as are recognized by the Constitution as parts of the government of the State, and of no others. The only means left of accom· plishing objects indirectly is in the levying of such occupation taxes as either favor or discourage some particular pursuit, which has seldom ever yet been practiced in this State to such an extent as to have aroused disaffected com­binations to evade or violently oppose the law. Such indirections in using the power of taxation to the injury of one class of pursuits or to the gratuit­ous advantage of others are generally odious, and are fraught with evil con­sequences to any government that persists in such a course of action. The effort to produce moral results or material benefits to the community indi­rectly by imposing high taxes upon particular pursuits is seldom effective and is wrong in principle. Fortunately civilized society has other agencies to correct attendant evils better than by placing the government in the po­sition of being an enemy to any one honestly pursuing an avocation permit­ted by law. The Legislature is prohibited from directly or indirectly conferring benefits on particular pursuits or persons under the power of taxation, because the Constitution provides that "taxation shall be equal and uniform," that "oc­cupation taxes shall be equal and uniform upon the same class of subjects," and that "taxes shall be levied and collected by general laws and for public purposes only." Exemptions from taxation may be made on property devoted to religious or educational pur.poses, and upon particular persons only in cases of great public calamity by a vote of two-thirds of both houses of the Legis­lature. Notwithstanding the equity and justice of this system of ad valorem taxa­tion upon property in principle, there may be a difficulty in securing equality in its burdens upon different persons proportionally by the mode provided for the assessment of the taxes, which should demand the utmost care and wisdom of the Legislature to secure its perpetuation as a system of taxation in the State. Indeed it would be more correct in principle for the State to rely more than it does upon an ad valorem tax upon property in collecting its revenues. For an occupation tax can be justified only upon the ground of reaching transient property that cannot be reached with facility by the mode of assess­ ing permanent property that is in the possession of its owner on the first of January each year. The force of that ground is much weakened when it is considered that in most occuP.ation taxes their payment is made in the first instance by those persons who are taxed, but is eventually paid by those per­ sons who deal with them, and is therefore often a tax upon the labor and in­ dustry of the persons who deal with them. This is obvious in the case of an occupation tax imposed on merchants. Permanent property is human labor materialized into shape, producing values in the way of profits. A very small portion of those profits taken as taxes will support the government without taxing the labor of those who are in the struggle to acquire it. In a republic it surely is the interest of the po· litical organization to facilitate the acquisition of property by the greatest number practicable in the association by honest labor, without placing any drawback upon their laudable efforts. That can only be done "by making the property already acquired bear mainly the burden of supporting the gov· ernment. Certainly the greater the number of permanent property holders in a State the greater will be the means of progress in civilization. The object of good government should be to shape its taxes so as to promote that result. The State has an inducement to rely mainly on taxation on property in view of the fact that the government of the United States levies and col­ lects its revenues directly and indirectly upon the labor and industry of the people to a degree that excludes the State from resorting to that source for the support of its government. In order to exhibit plainly the fact that the government of the United States has collected its revenue from the labor and industry of the people, and the reason of it, it is neces!;!ary to refer to the provisions in the Constitu­tion relating to taxation, and the construction of them, which has gradually led to an excessive increase of revenue beyond the necessary support of the government. The government under the Articles of Confederation was supported by contributions from the States in proportion to the value of the lands and improvements thereon in each State. This showed that its framers thought that the substantial property of the country, which then consisted mainly in its real estate, was the proper subject of taxation for the support of the gov­ernment. It might reasonably have been expected that the same principle would have been adopted for the succeeding government, so soon afterwards instituted by the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States. That expectation, if entertained, has failed of realization by a provision being inserted in the Constitution that "no capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census." This bas been held by the Supreme Court to apply only to a poll tax and a tax on lands. And a further pro­vision was inserted that "representatives and direct taxes shall be appor· tioned among the several States which may be included in this Union accord· ing to their respective numbers,'' etc. In addition to the difficulty of fairly adjusting such a tax on land, the want of correspondence between the number of people and the value and amount of land in each State, such a tax would be so unequal upon the citi­zens of different States, and consequently so unjust, that it has seldom been adopted as a means of supporting the government, and has been abandoned when the emergency no longer existed which caused its adoption. Congress, as a permanent policy m raising revenues, has acted upon another provision which declares that "the Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises to pay the debts and provide for the com­mon defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, im· posts, and ex<;ises shall be uniform throughout the United States." Thus, as it was designed that the Federal government should exercise only sue~ powers as were delegated to it, it became necessary to specify the power to lay and collect the different kinds of taxes, and to express the purposes for which that power was granted. If by this clause it had been universally understood that the general welfare of the United States (meaning the wel· fare of tlte government of the United States) should be accomplished only by the exercise of the powers delegated to it in such manner as to effect only the objects specified in the powers delegated, and not, incidentally, other ob· jects which were not specified, the taxation under this provision would have been laid and collected with direct reference only to what was necessary to support the government. .A construction in direct opposition to this has ca.used a continual contention and political strife, and has led to all of the ex­travagant expenditures from the meeting of the first Congress to the present time. That construction is that the words "general welfare of the United States " mean the general welfare of the people of the United States in their material and pecuniary interests, and in whatever else would contribute to the common good of the country and the power of the government, and that Congress could rightfully exercise the powers delegated to it in such a man. ner as would effect such objects indirectly as well as directly, in accordance with its own judgment and discretion. Similar in effect was the construction of this clause by President Monroe in his special veto message of May 4, 1822-thirty-three years after the or­ganization of the government under the Constitution-in which he says that he has changed the view which he was inclined to take of this clause in the more early stage of the government. He proceeds to expound the construc­tion of it by dividing the clause into two parts, asserting that the first, "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," conferred the power of taxation without any limit; and the second, "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," conferred the power to appropriate the money collected, not limited to the objects ex­pressed in the other powers granted to the government, and limited only by a sense of duty on the patt of the members of Congress; and concluded by saying: "My idea is that Congress have an unlimited power to raise money, and that in its appropriation they have a discretionary power restricted only by the duty to appropriate it to purposes of common defense, and of general, not local, N ationa.~ not State benefit." Of course every one will understand that the discretion of Congress practically determines its duty. Reference is here made to this construction of the power of taxation and appropriation, because it is an epoch in the political history of this country. It was an abandonment of the principles of the Virginia resolutions of 1798 and 1799, under which he and his two predecessors had been elected, by what was then called the Republican party, in opposition to the Federal party . .After referring to the action of the government in appropriating money to build numerous roads by consent of the States through which they passed, to facilitate travel through the country, and in appropriating money for pen­ sions, and for the relief of certain sufferers, he explains the reason of his change of opinion about the power under this clause by saying that it is "better to admit that the construction given by these examples has been just and proper than to deny that construction, and still practice on it-to say one thing and do another." He maintained that Congress had the power to appropriate money for the construction of roads and canals that would facili­tate the operations of war, of the mail service, and thereby promote the purposes· of commerce and political intelligence, and bring into market the public lands, but denied that any such control could be exercised over them by the Federal government as would interfere with the rights of the States. As he regarded the bill objectionable on that ground he vetoed it. He then took a broad view of the great advantages to the Union by a general system of internal improvements by the general government, which had become the more necess~ry by the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida, and recom­mended an amendment of the Constitution giving it the necessary power. At the next session of Congress President Monroe approved an appropria­tion for a general system of internal improvements, embracing surveys of numerous routes for roads and canals, and of rivers and harbors. At the same session he approved a law of Congress increasing the duties on imports in a manner purposely to afford additional protection to American manufac­tures. The majorities in favor of the law were, in the Senate four, and in the House five. In the vote on this bill there was a division between the mem­bers of the North in favor of it, and of the South against it, which has con­tinued generally to exist up to the present time. The history of this period is important for two connected objects, showing that duties were levied for protection with revenue as an incident, and not as it was previously done from the time of the first Congress, for revenue with protection as an incident; and as showing that appropriations were made for a general system of internal improvements, which opened the way for appropriations for any and every other object that Congress might deem to be for the general welfare, under the most liberal construction of those terms, not confined to the objects embraced in the express and implied powers of Congress. These measures were approved and enlarged by the succeeding administration of President John Quincy Adams, which encouraged the manufacturers of the Northern States to combine their efforts to increase their protection by an increase of duties upon foreign goods similar to those manufactured by them. For that purpose they held a convention at Harris­burg, Pennsylvania, in 1827, and passed and sent a memorial to Congress urging an increase of protection, which was complied with at the next session by enacting the tariff of 1828-a tariff which was afterward the subject of a bitter controversy, and was styled in the South the tariff of abominations. Before that time large amounts of taxes had been collected by direct taxes on lands, and excises on the distillation of liquors, on licenses, and stamps. These, however, were abandoned as soon as practicable as temporary expe­dients. And now, after the adoption of the tariff of 1828, the manufac­turers, constituting a powerful influence in the Northern States, were inter­ested to prevent any other mode of taxation for the support of the govern­ment than by a tariff which would continue or increase their protection. For the same purpose also they were interested to favor the appropriation of money for a general system of internal improvements, and for all other objects that the government could be induced to foster. This intluence has greatly aided in shaping taxation by the government from that time to the present. Previous events had tended to prepare the public mind for this liberal construction of the powers of government by which these measures were adopted. They were the assumption of the revolutionary debts of the States; the charter of a national bank, and its recharter in 1816, approved by President Madison by a change of his opinion in favor of it; the action of President Jefferson approving thfl establishment of the Military Academy; his sending Lewis and Clark to discover and claim Oregon on the Pacific Ocean ; the purchase by him of Louisiana for fifteen millions of dollars without constitutional authority, for which act he sought a confirmation by an amendment of the Constitution, which, however, was never made; the recommendation by President Jefferson of an amendment of the Constitu­tion to establish roads, canals, and other internal improvements; the war of 1812 with Great Britain, which cost the United States one hundred millions of dollars; the purchase of Florida for three millions of dollars; the asser­tion of what was called the Monroe doctrine, which was a claim of right on the part of the United States to interfere to prevent any further occupation of American territory by the monarchial powers of Europe; the Panama Mission; and the great increase of diplomatic agents and officers of government. These events, with a successful administration of the government up to that time, inspired the minds of a large class of statesmen with enlarged ideas of an imperial dominion over North America and a sort of fraternal protectorate over the whole continent of America, which resulted in the remodeling of parties, and the formation of a party in support of what was called "the American System," which reached its successful recognition in the country by the large appropriations for internal improvements of roads, canals, rivers, and harbors, and the tariff of 1828 for the protection of American manufactures. Thus the policy fastened on the country to perma­nently rely mainly on a tariff to supply the means for the expenditures of the government, and the policy of making large expenditures for internal improvements, bounties to ship lines, the purchase of additional territory, the expenses of wars, and numerous other objects have resulted in the neces­sary consequence that such a tariff would have to be levied as would afford protection to manufactures; especially, when levied, as it has uniformly been done, with specific reference to the protection of such goods as were manu­factured in the United States. It is true that a few years afterwards, in 1832, by the protest of South Carolina and Georgia against the tariff of 1828, and the threat and prepara­tion of South Carolina to secede from the Union, the Congress passed a com­promise law by which duties were to be gradually reduced until at the end of ten years they would be fixed at twenty per cent. The compromise was made under the announcement by the President that the power of the Fed­eral Government would be used to prevent secession by a State, which from its general approval at the time put an end, perhaps forever, te the interfer­ence of the action of a State in influencing the action of Congress and the government, as it then did and had previously often done. This reduc­tion soon disar>peared by the continuation of the policy that had been in­augurated of making large appropriations for the grand objects that had been undertaken by the government. It is but just to admit that the ad· ministrations whose acts mainly contributed to establish these new powers in the government were professedly controlled by the principles of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, which repudiated federalism and supplanted it with Jeffersonian republicanism. And this is a most notable illustration of how men's minds and actions will be changed when they are put in power and required to act in emergencies. Having shown how a protective tariff was permanently fastened upon the country, and the influences tending to perpetuate it, it is unnecessary to trace the legislation of Congress by which it has at one time been reduced and at another time raised again, which has repeatedly occurred. Its continued ex­istence is amply evidenced by the constantly increasing investment of capital in manufactures from the time the policy was inaugurated to the present time, and by the great fortunes acquired by those engaged in them. It is the policy of the government to-day, and there is no organized body of statesmen that proposes to abandon it now or in the near future. Both of the two great parties in the country are in favor of so arranging the tariff as not to materially affect prejudicially the interests of capital and labor en­gaged in manufactories. That is an avowal of favor of protection as plainly as though it were expressed. Both parties are in favor of modifying the tariff so as to avoid the excessive collection annually of over fifty millions of dollars which is not needed to meet the annual expenditures of the govern­ment. They differ simply about the manner of doing it, and the plan pro­posed by either party sustains the policy of protection. If protection is a positive good for the whole country there would seem to be no difficulty in getting rid of this excess of over fifty millions of revenue by increasing the duties sufficiently to exclude the foreign importations that produce that amount of revenue. But the fact that this surplus has been increasing for several years past without that easy plan for getting rid of it having been adopted might raise a doubt about the principle of the more protection the more good to the country. One party seeks to accomplish that object by reducing the duties on some articles of commerce and admitting other articles free of duty. The other party, not agreeing to that, seeks to make a reduction upon the internal rev­enue and some other subjects. The agonizing struggle by Congress over this unfortunate excess of the revenue reminds one of the perplexing dilemma. of the man who had a ferocious animal by the ears and could neither hold on nor let loose the angry beast without danger to himself. To show that there has been a gradual increase in the tariff and of the appropriations that made it necessary, reference may be made to statements made in debates in Congress by distinguished statesmen. The average annual receipts of the government for the decade ending l 800 was $5,000,000; of that ending 1830, $19,000,000 ; of that ending 1'860, $53, 000,000; and of the eight years ending 1888, estimated $365,000,000. It is stated that the foreign articles imported amount to $723,000,000. A duty averaging 47 per cent is la,id upon $479,000,000 worth of those articles, and $244,000,000 worth of them are admitted free. The tariff so laid is said to produce $225,900,000 of revenue, which added to the internal revenue from whisky, tobacco, etc., amounts to over $50,000,000 more than is necessary to pay the annual expenses of the government. It is estimated that for every dollar of the whole of this revenue that is received by the government there are five dollars paid for similar goods to American manufacturers as a bounty for manufacturing similar goods in the United States. This is upon the supposition that the American manufacturer will sell his goods at the same price that similar foreign gqods can be sold for after the average 47 per cent duty has been added on them upon passing through the custom house of the United States, and that he sells five times as many as are imported. The effect of this, if this estimate is correct, is to give a protection bounty to American manufacturers of over one billion of dollars by the tariff. Now suppose this estimate of the protection bounty to the manufacturers to be approximately correct, or even two or three times greater than a correct estimate, it exhibits a most extraordinary-state of things in a country which boasts of being "the land of the free and the home of the brave,'' in which there are over fifty millions of persons who are con­sumers of manufactured goods who suffer themselves to be taxed to furnish such a bounty to American manufacturers who by the last census numbered only something over fourteen thousand and now probably a thousand more. Had the three millions of people in the American colonies in 1776 tamely submitted to be taxed for general revenue by the British parliament it is not doing that government justice to suppose that such a burden as this would have been imposed by it upon the American people. There is nothing in the history of that period to justify such a supposition. The expense of the civil war made it necessary to lay a tax upon property within the States, the man­ufacturers having lost their customers in the South. They being restored to them after the war, a return wa.s made to the protective tariff and to in­ternal tax on whisky, tobacco, etc., which is itself a tax on labor and industry as well as the tariff is. What is the significance of protection as a permanent policy of the gov­ernment? It is, first, to furnish a home market for all goods manufactured in the United States; and, second, to continue it until the increase of manufac­turers and their employes consume all of the surplus products and raw materials of this country, including that which is now exported to foreign markets. How long will that take, when it is considered that there is about four times as much capital invested and six times as many persons employed in agricultural pursuits as there are in manufactures, the agricultural exports now being over $500,000,000? If that result could be attained in fifty years, with its enormous burden upon the labor and industry of the people, during·that time it would still require a. protective ta.riff to be maintained to enable the surplus manufactured goods to be sold in foreign markets, if it be true that they can not now and could not then be manufactured as cheaply here as in Europe. For the United States must always export American productions of some sort in return for such imports as can not be or are not produced in this country. The only things that could then reduce the tariff to the revenue standard would be pauper labor, as it is called, and an accumulation of capi­tal in manufactures equal to or sufficient to cope with that possessed in Eu­rope. Should the day ever come that this country shall come to be classed a.s a manufacturing country, as England is to·day, and the independent agri· culturist no longer holds the balance of power in the government, it will be a. day of mourning for the lost freedom and equality of the people. Repub­licanism will be dead, for dependent operatives, and farm renters, and trades people can not maintain i~. It is useless to speculate upon such a. contin­gency now when the agricultural resources of this country a.re not half de­veloped and will not be for many years in the future. There are many subjects of interest connected with this policy of protec­tion, the discussion of which would occupy too much space for a single dis­course-such a.s the loss to national wealth by a bounty to a pursuit that can not be profitably followed without it; the unfixing the true standard of labor in the mmas of the people, which should always be demand and supply; its formation of classes. struggling for more and Irore benefits the more they get; its begetting the worship of Mammon as the greatest good in human life; its encouragement of extravagant expenditures of the people's money; the reason and effect of closing factories or putting employes upon half time at work; why the operatives get no share of the bounty earned by their labor; why it is that protected goods can be sold in foreign markets for less than at home; the demoralization of giving favors to the private business of individuals by the action of the government, engendering discontent and dis­loyalty; and the controlling power of combined capital to direct the course of taxation, so as to add to its profits. Pretermitting all these, it may be of interest to ascertain and fix as nearly as practicable the real burden imposed upon the people by this high protective tariff. I find it stated that by the census of 1880 there were in round numbers a population in the United States of fifty millions, composed of ten millions of families, and revenue col­lected of about four hundred millions of dollars, by which a tax was im­posed of about eight dollars per capita, and about forty dollars per family. This general average estimate mcludes thousands of persons and even of families whose wealth enables them to bear high taxes without any feeling of oppression. The large class of people who are most affected are those who make a living by their own work, either with or without property to aid them in doing it, of whom there are from fifteen to twenty millions-about eight millions being rlevoted to agricultural pursuits. At least one-half of the articles that they have to buy annually for the use of themselves and of their families, if they have them, are such things as are embraced in the schedules of the tariff. An average tariff of 47 per cent on the articles thus purchased is in effect the same as though the government should impose a tax upon them in money equal to 47 per cent of the value of the articles purchased. The articles purchased are the products of the current labor de­ voted to the business in which such persons are engaged; and therefore the tariff takes from them in effect a tax upon their labor performed in making the money to buy such articles. Though there may be no means of ascer­taining the exact burden imposed upon this large class of persons, still it is evidently extremely onerous from the well known fact that the great majority of this laboring class spend annually nearly all of their hard earnings for a bare support.in humble respectability. It is peculiarly nppressive upon the farming class, very few of whom get any protection. The farmer pays a duty upon much of the material that enters into the construction of his residence and other buildings, of his wagon, plows, and other farming implements, also upon the clothes, bedding, and other household and kitchen furniture, and indeed upon almost everything necessary to be used in a family in the most ordinary circumstances, except­ing bread and meat and the vegetables and fruits of his farm. That it is extremely oppressive upon the farmer is evidenced by the remarkable de­pression of the farming interest at present. I have seen it reported that in the ten northwestern agricultural States there are estimated to be farm mort­gages to an amount largely over two billions of dollars, and even ten mil­lions of dollars in Texas, nothwithsta.nding our homestead protection. So depressed has this business become of late years that a farmer may own enough good land to cultivate himself, with stock and implements to work it, and make fair crops without being able to make but little more, if any, than a bare support for himself.and family, by the hardest kind of work and close economy. Let the investigator go where he will throughout Texas and throughout all of the cotton States, that make seven millions of bales of cot­ton, which is furnished to the cotton mills of America and of Europe; let him visit the farm houses and farms, see the million and more of laborers-white and black-that make that cotton; enquire into their mode of life, their hard labor, and their financial condition, and he may then be able to estimate, without fixing the respective amounts in dollars and cents, that one-fourth, or one-fifth, or one-sixth, or at least one-tenth of the money value of their labor, accordingly as they may furnish themselves with the necessaries of life, . is taken from them by this protective ta.riff to add to the wealth of the com­paratively few manufacturers far more than for the support of the govern­ment. In former times a rural home was the pride of the people of this country; a place of peace, independence, and plenty. Now many who can or must do it are fleeing from the country and seeking employment in trade or some other business in the towns and cities, under the hope that easier and more profitable employments will better enable them to bear up under the tax imposed upon their labor by the protective tariff of the United States, and the tax upon their property, if they have any left, by their State. Thus the great mass of people in this country who have to work for a livelihood, whose labor builds up the wealth, feeds the people, and furnishes the raw material that generates the great commerce of this country, are placed in degraded disfavor by the manner in which the taxes are levied upon their labor and industry, instead of being levied upon the property and incomes of the rich and other property holders who are living in ease, and often in luxurious extravagance, relieved to a great extent from taxes to sup­ port the government that protects their property. Such a tax imposed directly on each individual in dollars and cents ex­ pressed could not be collected without the aid of an overwhelming military force, subjugating the people and reducing them to hopeless slavery. It must not be understood that this presentation of our condition in regard to taxation, inadequate as it may be, is designed as a reflection upon the many distinguished and good men who are the congressmen of to-day. They did not fix their position and duties as legislators. That was done by their predecessors ranging through many years back who fastened certain policies upon the government of the country. Those of them who in late years have entered Congress have simply dropped into a long-flowing current that drifts them along in its settled course without the power of arresting or diverting it otherwise than by years of arduous efforts, if ever. They find themselves in an organized body acting as the delegated managers of the private pecuniary interests of all of the people as one great family. distributing benefits to per­sons, to classes, and to sections of country, and imposing burdens upon others according to policies long since inaugurated and now br-0ught to full matu­rity of operation. It assumes to take cognizance of and watchful care for all of the private occupations and pursuits of individuals and classes, and of the private and public welfare of all of the people from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, and from the gulf to the great lakes, not omitting an occasional concern about the fisheries of the north and the operations at Nicaragua and Panama, as well as upon the high seas and islands. The immense multiplicity of sub­ . jects thus embraced furnishes continually some one or more perplexing ques­tions to be solved, as the negro problem, then the railroad regulation, and now the trusts. These may pass away in time, but the one perplexing ques­tion that stays-that has staid with bitter strife for more than fifty years past, and still stays, and will not down-is the protective tariff. The Senate of the United States was made famous as one of the most dignified bodies of modern times by the discussions of great principles and measures of state by great men. We may now behold the spectacle of grave senators represent­ing States of the Union in that body engaged in an earnest disputation or consultation over the bounty to be given to the men who make gentlemen's and ladies' cuffs, and spool thread, and buttons, and brooms, and soap, and thousands of other things great and small contained in the schedule of the tariff. What a descent from their high position! "0 temporal 0 mores!" And the worst of it is that interested parties from all over the county are co.rtinua1ly besetting them to give them information how to do it, presum· ably becau:se they do not know how to do it themselves. And it is safe to say that very few members of Congress ever will know as long as the effort is made to adjust a different duty upon three or four thousand different ar­ticles in the tariff law. How long will this unjust contribution from muscle to money continue? It will continue until the American mind can be educated up to the full understanding, if ever it can be, that the people in this country of grand and exhaustless natural resources, in all of the means of individual and national wealth, are capable of taking care of themselves, and need not be taken care of as the children of a large family; and, if a tariff is continued, that the true province of the Federal Government is to lay on all foreign importations one uniform ad valorem tariff, just sufficient to defray the necessary expenses of an economical republican government, which will lift a great burden from the consumers and will still be ample protection for domestic manufactures. The whole country would then stand upon its own abundant resources for the advancement of its own material prosperity, as it should do. A just financial system being thus permanently established all other things would adapt themselves to it. Then members of Congress wouli no longer be elected as advocates of a. particular private interest! Then the wrangle, wrangle over protection that has rung in the people's ears for half a century would cease! Then extravagant expenditure would lose the motive that has so long prompted it! Then the almighty dollar of to-day would lose its power to control elections I And then the government-truly republican-being just to all and giving special favors to none, would be the pride and blessing of a patriotic people! And better still, if the time should ever co:-ne when it shall be seen and acted on, that the true principle in a republic is that the labor materialized into permanent property shall be made to support the government mainly if not entirely, and not the labor itself in the effort of the acquisition of prop­erty, the vast majority of people, the millions who reach maturity of man­hood and womanhood, and who must commence their life-work for their own self-elevation without property to assist them in it, would be encouraged to improve their condition in life, with the knowledge that the government did not impose any drawback upon their labor by taxing the necessaries of life Rad such a principle been acted on during the past one hundred years in the United States there would not have been so many millionaires, but its ten· dency would have been to have exhibited a widespread general elevation of the great mass of the people that would have made American citizenship honored all over the enlightened world. ROADS AND MATERIAL FOR THEIR CONSTRUCTION IN THE BLACK PRAIRIE REGION OF TEXAS. BY ROBT. T. HILL. SYNOPSIS. L The Black Prairie region of Texas geographically defined. Its geo­logical structure and origin of its soil. Extent and agricultural importance. Its fullest development retarded by interrupted traffic. 2. Roads and their construction. Wagon ways the most essential high· ways. What constitutes a good roadway. The economic, legislative, en· gineering, and geologic aspect of road making considered. The special problems of road making in the Black Prairie region. 3. The material for the construction of roads in the Black Prairie region. Basalt. Gravels-Plateau gravel, river gravel, creek gravel. Limestones­Chalks, chalky limestones, and marble. Marls-Oolites and other substances. General conclusions on the relative value of these materials. INTRODUCTORY .NOTE. In this paper the writer has drawn freely upon the authorities quoted for the engineering and legislative phases of the subject. To those who wish to go farther into these he recommends a careful perusal of The Maintenance of Macadamized Roads. Thomas Codrington. London, 1879. Road Legis· lation for the American State. Jeremiah W. Jenks, Ph. D. American Eco· nomic Association. Baltimore, 1889. THE BLACK PRAIRIE REGION OF TEXAS. In the political bounds of Texas can be found many areas, each peculiar in geographic, geologic, and cultural aspect. The most impoI'tant of these in point of productivity, population, and general agricultural importance is commonly known as the Black Prairie Region. This occupies an elongated area extending from the Ouachita Mountain system of Arka.nsas and Indian Territory on the north of the Red River to the Santa Rosa (Rocky) Moun­.tain system of northern Coahuila. The broadest portions of the strip are along Red River, from Sherman to Rocky Comfort, a distance of about 100 miles, and from San Antonio to near Eagle Pass, about the same distance. A little south of the centre along the Colorado drainage, from Austin east· ward to the Travis County line, the strip is restricted to its narrowest limits. The eastern border of the Black Prairie is the southwestern termination of the great Atlantic timber belt, which, with its more or less arenaceous soils, extends uninterruptedly from Labrador into Texas. Westward the Black Prairie is succeeded by a region with some superficial resemblance to it, but which upon closer study is found to differ in every essential point. This is the " Grand Prairie," or "hard lime rock region,'' which may be seen along the east &.nd west railways, especially between Fort Worth and Weatherford, McNeil and Burnet, Whitesboro and Henrietta. The so-called mountains west of Austin are remnants of the plain of the Grand Prairie. South of Austin the scarp of this plain is known as the Balcones. North of the Brazos the Balcones scarp disappears and a narrow forest region known as the Lower Cross Timbers intervenes. The line of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway approximately mar!i:s this western boundary of the Black Prairie. In general it consists of a level plain gently sloping to the south of east, varied only by gentle undulations and deep drainage valleys. It is tran­sected at intervals by the larger streams, whose basins together with their side streams make deep indentations into the plain, but not sufficient to materi­ally destroy the general flatness of the wide divides, which seem entirely void of surface drainage. The surface of most of the Black Prairie region is a deep black clay soil, which when wet becomes very tenacious, from which fact it is locally called "black waxy." This soil in general is the residuum of the underlying clays (with the exception of a narrow chalky strip to be mentioned later), and contains an excess of lime, which, when acted upon by the vegetation, causes the black color. It is exceedingly productive, and nearly every foot of its area is susceptible of a high state of cultivation, con· stituting one of the most extensive continuous agricultural regions in the United States. Although only a tenth or less of the total area of the State, it supports one-fourth the population and produces nearly one-half the wealth. Large crops of cotton, corn, and minor crops are annually raised upon its fertile lands, and if there were suitable facilities for rapid transportation it would soon become one of the leading districts of our country. With a pleasant climate smd productive soil, the region has every natural condition that could be dts from the weathering of which all the surface features and soils are produced, and which will afford materials for foundations or macadamizing roads. THE UPPER OR BLACK PRAIRIE FORMATION (GULF SERIES). (Bl,a,ck Prairie and Lower Oross Timbers Formation.) Thickness. 5. Uppermost arenaceous (glauconitic) beds. Spots of Anderson County, along eastern margin of cretaceous area in Texas. Rarely found. Has greatest development in Arkansas, as at Arkadelphia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + 300* 4. Marly Clay beds: (E. Ponderosa marls). Main or eastern area of the black waxy region, as seen in parts of Lamar, Fannin, Grayson, Collin, Dall!IB, Ellis, Navarro, Falls, McLennan, Williamson, eastern Travis, Hays, Comal, and Bexar counties, and Arkansas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . + 1200 3. The Austin-Dallas chalk, occurring in a very narrow strip immediately west­ward or interior of the above. Sherman, McKinney, Waco, Austin (except 11ixth ward), and San Antonio are situated on this line. Also at Rocky Comfort, Arkansas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + 600 2. The Eagle Ford Prairies, or "Fish Beds," immediately west of the foregoing, and composing the black "hog wallow" prairie of Alvarado, Hillsboro, and the sixth ward of Austin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + 300f 1. The lower cross timber sand, which is the base of this formation north of the Brazos. No. 2 is the base south of that river ............. ........... + 300f THE LOWER OR GRAND PRAIRIE FORMATION (COMANCHE SERIES). (Grand Prairie and Upper Oross Timbers .Fbrmation.) This formation increases in thickness to the southward, and no general estimate of thick· ness is at present deemed advisable. Following is the section from Austin to Burnet: Thicklless. 9. Shoal Creek or (Vola) limestone....... . . .. . . .. . • .. . . .. . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~6 8. Green clays (Fa,ogyra arietina clays), bed of Shoal Creek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 *Artesian wella have penetrated these clays to this thickneee at Corsicana, Texas. tThis tbicknesa of these horizons is the most modest estimate that e&n be given. Accurate measurements are now being made. Roads and Mat~r£al for thez'r Construction. 23 Thickness. 9. Washita limestone, railroad cut We~t Pecan street extension, Austin, and ex­tending parallel to the above in a narrow line across the State· from Fort Washita, I. T., southward via Denison, Fort Worth, Salado, San Marcos, Heliotes, and west to Mexico... . ......... .... ... .. ................. 160 6. The Austin marble or Caprotina limestone, west of Austin ................. + 20 5. The paving flags, or lithographic horizon, west of city of Austin . . . . . . . . . . . + 20 4. Barton Creek, or Caprina limestone. Barton Creek above the ford, the high bluffs of the Colorado at and opposite Johnson's quarry, and the west bluff of Mount Bollflel . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . lOOOf 3. The Nummulitic (Tinoporus) chalk, river bluffs near Bull Creek............ lOOf 2. Fredericksburg division, including all the limestones and marls west of the above which have not yet been differentiated.......... . . . . . . . . . . +1000+ 1. The Upper Cross Timber or Trinity sands .......... . . . ....• .. . .. .... + 300 Estimated Lower Cretaceous, Central Texas............... ..... ... 2775 Estimated Upper Cretaceous, Central Texas . ..... .. ...... ...... ... 2100 Total . 48~5 THE ECONOMY OF ROADS. It is not within the province of this paper to decide the question of the desirability of roads in the Black Prairie region. It is presumed from the fact that certain highways already exist, and much money and labor is expended upon their maintainance, that highways are an acknowledged public necessity. The same necessity which constructed the present roads is calling for their improvement. The experience of agriculture and com­merce, since earliest times, has demonstrated the desirability of easy com­munication, and wagon roads are considered the first essential toward securing this result. Their necessity may be briefly summarized as follows: They are a safe guard against oppressive charges by public carriers; they facilitate quick and easy transportation over short distances; they are a means of aiding social intercourse; they economize intelligent energy which would otherwise be employed in the drudgery of transportation; they save the needless waste of animal strength, which without roads would be devoted to exhaustive traction; they afford employment for crude labor, and also for that of a large dependent class which is usually idle in every community; and by preventing the concentration of population in cities, they add to the upbuilding of alleged rural homes and communities. Without going farther into all the popular arguments for better roads, we may as well go to the botteen compelled to pay a toll rate of several cents a mile for passing over it, though it was necessary to take a pickaxe and spade m the wagon in order to render some parts of the road passable by wheels. At times this road is almost blocked even to horsemen. Surely ad valorem taxation and public management is the only equitable system of this age. As for toll roads and compulsory labor or a tax in lieu thereof, they are both out of date at the end of the nineteenth century." THE IMMEDIATE PROBLEM OF ROADS JN THE BLACK PRAIRIE REGION. Having describetl the ideal roads of other regions, let us now consider their application to the immediate problems of road making in the Black Prairie re­gion. The chief obstacles are the facts that the natural roads of the region for one-half or two-~hirds of the year are in a fair condition for use without arti­ficial improvement, and that the present population is not sufficient to bear the immediate expense of making first class macadamized highways. It is but just that the generations to come who will reap the greatest benefit should be made to bear some of the expense by means of bonds, and that highways to be constructed at present should be as economical as possible. 'l'he chief engineering problem is to construct a good highway upon the clay foundation, and the only kind of road that will endure is one whose surface will be suffi­ciently waterproof to prevent the undermining of the clay foundation, and nothing less than macadamized roads will serve the purpose. As clays retain much moisture and are difficult to drain, the building of wide driveways in the Black Prairie region would be inadvisable, if eco­nomically possible, and the best type of highways would be a narrow macad­amized highway, with good drainage ditches, curbs, and culverts, running between two natural roads such as exist at present, which would be prefer· able in good weather. Roads of this character, with proper machinery labor, could be constructed for two thousand or three thousand dollars a mile, or less than one dollar per acre for the county through which they are to be built. While the writer has strong sentimental objections to working convicts upon public highways, so long as it is done there is no reason why this class of labor should not be employed in building roads; and if our prisoners were classified after the plan of those in England, the privilege of working on the roads would be eagerly sought by men who have earned partial liberty by good behavior, and the cost of guarding abolished. The county convicts could be thus employed to great advantage. According to Shaler, clay roads can only be made into satisfactory ways by means of effective drainage so contrived that the least possible water will remain in the material which feels the effect of the tread of the draught animal or the down-wearing thrust of the wheel. Deep side ditches are absolutely necessary for such roads, and the narrower the roadway the more effective will be this drainage work. It is a great mistake in such roads to have any more width than is imperatively necessary for the uses of the Roads and Material for their Construction. 33 structure. If the ditches extend to a depth which would maintain the crown of the road two feet above the water-level, and the roadway is of the least possible width, the problem of protection against mud is most easily solved. Each county should possess good tools and machinery for road construction, especially a Blake crusher for breaking stone and a steam roller, as uan be seen from the following remarks by Professor Shaler: "It is the general custom to prepare the broken stone for roadways by the slow process of hand-breaking, and a large part of the cost of such construc­tion is due to the expense of this labor. Modifications of the Blake crusher are now in use for the preparation of macadam material. All those machines which I have seen are too heavy for the best service in road making. Machines should be prepared which are sufficiently portable to be placed now here and now there along the line of the roadway where stone can be secured, so as to avoid the large cost which is now incurred in hauling the material to the crusher and thence to the place where it is to be built into the road. One of the best contributions to the art of road making would be a convenient machine of this description. Moreover, all the machines I have seen are worked by steam power. It should be possible to operate them by horse power as well. After the roadway has been covered with broken stone, the mass should be firmly bedded by the use of heavy rollers. It is the custom away from our cities to trust this bedding to the chance action of wheels. It is, in a fashion, after much damage to vehicles and horses' feet, fairly bedded, but the wol'k is never so well accomplished as it is by the roller. "Of course such costly apparatus is not within the means of any rural com­ mune, but if our road making were turned over to large governmental com­ munities, say the counties, or associations of towns, it would prove far more eco­ nomical than the present shiftless system. The machinery appropriated for the construction of roads, including a full ar:ray of suitable plows, scrapers, steam crushers, and rollers, could probably be a:fforded for about two thousand dollars. Under the charge of a skillful roadmaster in most sections of the country high grade roads could be constructed at a cost not exceeding $3000 per mile. Assuming that a road of this description serves the need of a strip of country for a mile on either side of the way, the cost would be but $2.50 per acre on the area served. In general, however, it would be safe to assume that the service of the road would be rendered to twice this area per mile of length, and thus the cost would be reduced to $1.25 per acre." "One of the most considerable benefits which we could hope to arise from the proper education of roadmasters, and from the permanent employment of such officials, would be found in the improved location of such ways. Very few of those who have to determine the position of our rural ways are capable of making an adequate survey for such work. A proper determination of a common road line demands even more attention than for the alignment of a. railway. It is true that there are certain features which have to be consid­ered in railway lines which do not necessarily enter into computation in a road, but owing to the fact that the common road is more dependent on the char· acter of the subsoil than a railway, there are complications about placing the former of these ways which do not enter into the computation of the railway engineer"* :MATERIAL FOR ROAD BUILDING. Although the geological substructure of the Black Prairie region is itself void of any material suitable for making road metal, the region is convenient upon every hand to a great and suitable variety of material. Its western border is abundantly supplied with excellent chalk and limestone and its eastern is covered with gravel, while at a few places throughout its extent protrude basaltic cones and necks of the most durable of all known road materials. Rivers transect it at various intervals, all of which are accom­panied by an abundance of road-making gravel. These materials will now be discussed more specifically under their appropriate heads. BASALT.-There is an area of this igneous rock protruding through the heart of the Black Prairie region, seven miles east of south of Austin at the locality known as Pilot Knob, and within two miles of some of the worst roads of the whole country. Basalt is a massive rock of volcanic or other igneous origin. Its color is usually black or greenish black. It is usually termed "iron rock" by the residents of the region where it occurs, owing to its great resemblance in heaviness and color to that metal. It has an irregular fracture and is broken with great difficulty. It is one of the most difficult to crush of all the road metals, but its durability is proportionally as great, being three times that of flint and over twice that of iimestone. The quantity at Pilot Knob is suffi­cient to macadamize all the roads of the Black Prairie region, but owing to the presence of much more convenient materials it is not probable that basalt will ever be used, except upon the roads of cities having extensive traffic, as its excessive weight and hardness increase the cost of using it. There are a few other localities of basalt south of Austin, but they have not been studied in detail. GRAVEL AND OTHER DEBRIB.-Fragments of the hard rock structure of the earth, which have been broken from their original stratum, transported and rounded by water, and deposited at some distant point, are usually termed gravel. If these water-rolled and worn fragments are large they are termed •The Common Roads, N. L. Shaler, Scribner's Magazine, Oct., 1889. Roads and Material for the£r Construct£on. 35 boulders; if too small to be separated by the eye without close scrutiny they are termed sands. The various sizes between boulders and sands are usually called gravel. Accompanying gravel deposits may be clays, which fill up the interstices between the individuals. In deposits made by fresh water the materials may consist of all sizes, but they are usually more or less sorted by the current. In close proximity to the Black Prairie region are superb gravel deposits, of every degree of texture, size, and composition, suitable for various uses in road construction. These may be classified under four distinct heads, each of which will be appropriately discussed. 'l'he Plateau Gravel.-Along the eastern side of the Black Prairie region, . often overlapping its border with the Sandy Forest region, are immense de­posits of gravel of various sizes and composition. In the northern portion of the State the gravel is mostly composed of quartz and cherts derived from the ancient mountain region of Arkansas and Indian Territory. East of Austin and northward it is mostly composed of flints derived from the Grand Prairie region. These are often as large as a human head, and would serve well for a Telford foundation, but as often used now they are an injury to the roads. In many places, however, this gravel is of a sufficient size for top­dressing, and occurs in inexhaustible quantities. When occurring on the line of railways transecting the Black Prairie some provision should be made, as along the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad in Mississippi and Alabama, where that road has found it beneficial to mine and transport this gravel, at a minimum cost, to various points along its line. River Gra~el-It has been stated in this paper that by far the greater por­tion of the Black Prairie is a level, elevated plain, through which grooves have been cut at various intervals by transecting rivers. Some of these rivers-like the Brazos, the Red, and the Colorado-being older than the plain, have worn wide valleys through it, and these are lined with inex­haustible deposits of gravel of every degree of firmness. Along the Col­orado, in Travis County, for instance, these ancient terrace deposits of gravel extend from one to three miles on each side of the present river, and will furnish an inexhaustible supply of the finest road material in the world, sufficient for the whole of the Black Prairie region. The old Austin and Bastrop road (trail) passes through a region of Black Prairie clays covered by this gravel. For long distances the gravel has been removed by nature, and hence there are alternations of stretches of magnificent gravel wagon ways and most impassable slushes, which with a few hundred dollars outlay and engineering skill could be turned into one of the most pleasant and profitable highways in the State. This gravel is in convenient distance to all the poorer highways of the county, such as the Manor, the Rockdale, and the Round Rock roads, as well ae the streets of Austin. The gravel occurs both with and without accompanying clays. The former should only be used on the Black Prairie clays. The latter is adaptable for surfacing roads upon the chalk, as seen in the JJewly constructed drives around the new Capitol building. Creek Gravel.-In addition to the river gravel, which is made up mostly of the ancient and harder rocks of the Burnet region, there are good deposits of locally derived limestone gravel along most of the creeks which cross from the Grand into the Black Prairie. This gravel, however, consists of softer lime· stones, and would only be of value for local repairs and not for extensive construction. The gravel of such streams as the San Marcos, the Guadalupe, of Onion Creek, and the San Gabriel are of this character. LIMESTONES. -Perhaps the most valuable of all road making material is limestone, when we consider its ease of fracture, its endurance, and its com­pacting qualities. The following varieties are abundant: Chalks.-In the. imruediate territory of the Grand Prairie, however, there is but one species of limestones, and this is the Austin-Dallas chalk, which is too soft for macadamizing purposes, but is admirably adapted in many cases for the Telford foundation. This chalk is a stratum of about 600 feet in thickness, as explained in the description of the subdivisions of the Black Prairie. The chalk, or "white rock" as it is called in its natural position, makes a good foundation, the surface material often hardening into a substance technically known as "chalk-pan." The best streets in Austin are of this nature, and a short section of North A venue between North Congress Ave­nue and Colorado Street, makes a natural road far superior to any that could be artificially constructed. Although the chalk is hardly worth digging and transporting for great distances, when possible in laying out roads they should be located upon it. Chalky Limestones.-However abundant the other sources of material for road construction in the Black Prairie region, the great limestone beds of the eastern margin of the Grand Prairie will ultimately prove the cheapest and most reliable material. These limestones are generally chalky limestones, i. e., chalks which have hardened through change sufficiently to be duraele for eco­nomic uses. South of the Brazos these limestones are directly at the western edge of the Black Prairie, and in quantities to macadamize it many times over. The first of these in descending order is (a) The Shoal Creek, or Red Limestone, as seen on Shoal Creek, in the city of Austin, and on the south side of the river between the International Railroad and Barton Springs. Here the material is naturally so jointed and frag­mentary that it would require very little mechanical crushing to reduce it to a splendid macadamizing material. It has been used this summer to build a Telford foundation on the road along which it occurs, but as this foundation Roads and Material for their Construction. 87 was not surfaced or macadamized, it will be but one winter or two before it will agam be irrevocably buried beneath the black mud. This limestone could be used to great ·advantage on the principal Black Prairie highways near Austin. (b) Washita Limestone.-As seen in the section on p. -, this limestone oc­curs beneath and a little to the westward of the foregoing, capping the hills east of Mount Bonnell, and near Taylor's lime kiln, at Austin. Fort Worth and Sala.do are situated upon it. It is an impure, somewhat arena­ceous material, and is moderately soft, being intermediate between the Austin chalk and the Shoal Creek limestone. It is specially well adapted to surfac­ing, but should only be us~d when better materials are less accessible. ( c) Other Limestones of the Grand Prairie Formation.-Beneath the Washita, and constituting the whole of Western Travis and other counties, there are a thousand feet or more of much harder limestones, varying from marble to softest chalk, which would be available for building every kind of roads. These limestone are of the lithologic character of the Cretaceous and J urasic limestones of France and Switzerland, out of which some of the excellent roads of those countries are constructed. Yellow Mads, "Fuller's Earth," and Oolite.-Alternately with the great strata of yellow magnesian limestone, which make up the mass of Mount Bonnell, and at other localities m the grand prairies are strata of laminated yellow marl, which when wet does not become tenacious like clay, but packs and hardens into a splendid road material. This fact can be illustrated by driving over any of the roads of the Grand Prairie region and noting the s!::.ort stretches of superb natural road which is always found when these marls constitute the surface. This is well shown on Mount Bonnell between the mansion on its slope and its summit. In most localities these marls would be considered invaluable for building drive ways, speed tracks, and surfacing macadamized roads. Upon study of its texture these marls are found to be what is termed "oolitic" by the geologists, and are composed of lime, silica, and magnesia in minute egg-like grains. They can be mined very cheaply, and would be especially valuable in improving' roads in the im­mediate vicinity of their occurrence. Flints.-Accompanymg a certain horizon of the above limestone are vast deposits of fl.int which would be valuable for road construction and improve­ment under some circumstances, although there is not much need for them in Texas at present. These flints occur upon the remnantal flat-topped divides of the Grand Prairie west of Austin as a residuum of the decomposing chalk, and are the source of the flints in the plateau gravel above mentioned. RELATIVE VALUE OF MATERIAL. The above comprises nearly every material known to modern road builders, and it should be but a short time until the Black Prairie has a magnificent system of wagon highways. Each of these materials has its proper use in it~ proper place, according to its cost and necessity. For the benefit of those who may have a desire to inquire more deeply into the value of these materials for road construction, the following tables have been copied from he Ency­clopedia Brittanica, showing their relative endurance and crushing resist­ance: Materials. Coefficient of Wear. Coefficient of Crushing. Basalt ..................... . ...... . 12.5 to 24.2 12.1 to 16.0 Granite .................... . ...... . 7.3 to 18.0 7.7 to 15.8 Quartzite ........••.......... 13.8 to 30.0 12.3 to 21.6 Quartzose sandstone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 14.3 to 26.2 9.9 to 16.6 Quartz ............... ~ ............ . 12.9 to 17.8 12.3 to 13.2 Silex . ............ . .. . ............ . 9.8 to 21.3 14.2 to 17.6 Chalk flints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 3.5 to 16.8 17.8 to 25.5 Limestone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... . 6.6 to 15.7 6.5 to 13.5 For present uses in the Black Prairie perhaps the chief question to be con­sidered is the distance the material must be transported, and this must be determined by local considerations. NEED OF ROAD BUILDING EDUCATION. It will be seen that it is not a dearth of road-making material that prevents us from having good roads on the Black Prairie region of 'l'exas, but rather of engineering skill and the lack of good road laws. We have every material that could be desired in easy reach, and it is hoped that within a few years, with good engineers, good laws, and plenty of material, that every house in the Black Prairie will be in direct road communication with the rest of the world for at least every day in the year. The chief obstacle to building roads, however, will be the difficulty to find men with the necessary technical education for constructing them, and until our road masters are educated in road building we need not expect the best highways. In view of this fact it will not be inappropriate to close this paper with Prof. Shaler's admirable remarks upon the teaching of road making in technical schools. He says: "The evil of poor roads, depending as it does in great measure on the lack of engineering skill, as well as an indisposition to endure direct taxation for public improvement, must in the main be remedied by a slow growth in the Roads and Material for thez'r Construction. 39 public knowledge of road construction. Something, however, may be done through education in the public schools, and by means of the press, to hasten the coming of a better system of ways. There is in this country a set of colleges which are resorted to by students who in their maturer years are to have a share in rural affairs. Thirty or more of our States received the foun­dations for agricultural and mechanical colleges from the Federal govern­ment. Each of these schools should have a good course of teaching in the matter of roadways. Some of them already nominally pay a certain amount of attention to the matter, but the instruction is generally of a very imper­fect sort. There are no good text-books treating of the subject, and the in­structors are commonly without much experience in the matter. It seems to me that public ways in general (the conveyance problem of our modern society) lie at the root of all economic development, and are closely connected with social development. They are essential features in the physiology of our commonwealths, and as such should have a large place in any instruction which concerns the management of public affairs."