Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 15).djvu/80

 reference to the value of road-building materials, the Secretary of Agriculture has established at Washington, D. C., a mechanical and chemical laboratory for testing such material from all parts of the country. Professor L. W. Page, late of Harvard University, is in charge of this laboratory, and has tested many samples of rock without charge to those having the test made. There is, however, no test equal to the actual application of the material to the road itself.

With a view to making more extensive tests than could be done by laboratory work alone, the Director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries has, during the past two years, coöperated with the local authorities in many different states in building short sections of object-lesson roads. In this work it is intended not only to contribute something by way of coöperation on the part of the General Government, but also to secure coöperation on the part of as many different interests connected with the road question as possible. The local community having the road built is most largely interested, and is expected