system, and have received nothing but benefits from the fact that we parallel that route from Kansas City to Los Angeles. They take a broader and more comprehensive view of the transportation question than almost any other railroad system that I know about. Such will be the case, universally, when we all realize that we are all one people and are striving to serve, as best we may, the general interests of the whole people.

CHAPTER III.

Engineers Great Pioneers of Progress.

Country's Big Debt to Pathfinders Who Blazed the Trail From Coast to Coast

By Harry Pence

THE "OLD NATIONAL PIKE”

The war with Mexico in 1848 was the first in which the graduates of West Point took an important part. After the conflict General Winfield Scott, who was not himself a West Pointer, said, "I give it as my fixed opinion that but for our graduated cadets the war between the United States and Mexico might and probably would have lasted four or five years with, in its first half, more defeats than victories falling to our share; whereas in less than two campaigns we conquered a great country and a peace without the loss of a single battle or skirmish."

But long before the outbreak of the Mexican War the United States Military Academy had made signal contributions to the upbuilding of the country. The graduates of West Point constituted the only class of "home grown talent" possessing engineering knowledge and skill. The same principles underlie both military and civil engineering, and instructions at West Point included thorough training in these sciences.

As Congress pursued a policy of holding the army to the irreducible, minimum, vacancies in the regular line were not sufficient to give places to all the graduated cadets. Many of them were assigned to such pioneering work as the exploration of the western frontiers and the reconstruction of our obsolete coast defenses. This naturally led to road building and the erection of lighthouses at dangerous points on the coasts and Great Lakes.

The earliest major accomplishment of the Corps of Army Engineers was the projection and construction of the "Old National Pike," a highway famous in the early days for its unusually excellent surface, its width, its celebrated taverns. It began at Cumberland, Maryland, the western end of the older Braddock's Road from Washington, and penetrated the great West to St. Louis. It was the main line of travel from the Middle West to the National Capital. It ran through and became a considerable factor in the early growth of Uniontown and Washington, Pennsylvania; Wheeling, West Virginia; Zanesville and Columbus,

Ohio; Richmond and Indianapolis, Indiana; Marshall and Vandalia, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri. This old road, built entirely at government expense, was begun in 1806, primarily as a means of transporting troops quickly to Mississippi River points and farther westward, but under the care of United States Army engineers it served better the cause of peace and progress than that of war. In 1837, it was turned over to the various States and many stretches of it fell into bad repair. The advent of the automobile has brought about its reconstruction and it is now one of the country's most celebrated, popular and useful motor highways.

Explorations of the comparatively unknown West, map making of all sections of the country and the discovery of the natural resources of the nation proved so important that a corps of Topographical Engineers was organized and served till its amalgamation with the regular Corps of Engineers at the outbreak of the Civil War.

A sizable volume could be written upon the work of this special corps, commanded by army engineers and composed of army and navy men and such civilian aids as were necessary to keep the work up to the highest standard possible within the appropriations for its maintenance.

John C. Fremont, the famous "Pathfinder," did his best work as a member of this corps and other topographical engineers braved the hardships and dangers of the frontier to explore and make maps which greatly aided the army in conflict with the Western Indians.-Dearborn Independent, Oct. 18, 1924.

FIRST IRON BRIDGE BUILT IN AMERICA

Still Carries National Pike Traffic.

The first iron bridge built in America, the eighty-foot single arch across Dunlap's Creek in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, between Uniontown and Wheeling, still carries the traffic of the famous National Pike.

This historic structure was completed July 4, 1839, more than eighty-five years ago. During the palmy days of the old Cumberland Road, stagecoaches and Conestoga wagons passed over this bridge in a constant stream.

For more than half a century after the coming of the railroads, the National Pike, the first improved highway between the seaboard and interior, was little used except for local horse-drawn travel.

Now an endless procession of automobiles and motor trucks race across the Dunlap's Creek bridge at high speeds and carry greater loads than were dreamed of by its bold, able designer.

In addition, the staunch, well-proportioned structure is being subjected to a further dead load, not contemplated when it was built, consisting of two concrete sidewalks each about six feet wide,

together with the beams and brackets supporting them without any reinforcement of the arches or the abutments.

Captain Richard Delafield, U. S. Army Engineer Corps, designed and erected this bridge. His principal assistant was Lieutenant G. W. Cass. The brilliant careers of these men explain the worth of the first iron bridge erected in the New World.

Captain Delafield later was twice superintendent of West Point; our observer at the siege of Sebastopol, and, finally, chief engineer of the U. S. Army and regent of the Smithsonian Institution.

Lieutenant Cass entered civil life and helped organize the Adams Express Company, of which he became president. He was subsequently president of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad, part of the Pennsylvania System, and lastly president of the Northern Pacific.

In a letter to General Charles Gratiot, chief engineer of the U. S. Army, dated March 21, 1836, Captain Delafield describes the plan of this bridge as "different in its principles of construction from any of which I could find a notice by either English or French engineers."

The eighty-foot arch of the Dunlap's Creek bridge is composed of five large, round, cast-iron ribs, termed voussoirs. Each voussoir is made of nine hollow pieces or segments. The five voussoirs parallel each other.

The arch rises eight feet from the points where the voussoirs spring from the abutments to the center of the bridge. The level roadway is built on top of this arched framework, the bones of the bridge.

The abutments are of sandstone masonry, each 25 feet wide, 14 feet thick and 42 feet high. They are faced with so-called springing plates of cast iron, each 28 feet 8 inches long and 21⁄2 inches thick, upon which the ends of the 5 ribs of the arches rest.

The iron work in the bridge was constructed in the establishment now known as the Herbertson Foundry, in Brownsville. Doubtless it was the location of the foundry in Brownsville and the availability of Pittsburgh pig iron via the Monongahela River, which connects the two places, that emboldened the army engineers to embark upon the adventure of building this country's first iron bridge.

In the letter to General Gratiot, previously quoted, Captain Delafield also said that he had ordered Lieutenant Cass to go to the Pittsburgh furnaces and purchase the "pig metal of a quality similar to that used there for Gun Metal." One hundred and fiftynine tons was used.

Captain Delafield rented the foundry and its staff, stating, "By this course I can secure a choice of metal and can control the mode of casting in any way it may be found desirable." He

took no chances upon inferior material or workmanship and time has proved his wisdom.

There are two hundred and fifty castings in the bridge as well as the wrought-iron railings. Although cast iron strongly resists rust, Captain Delafield took the precaution, after the superstructure had been erected, immediately to cover it with a coat of gas tar and then three coats of white lead paint.

The construction of the bridge was started late in 1836 and while it was so far advanced that its use commenced about July, 1838, its completion and formal opening did not take place until Independence Day, 1839. The cost was $39,901.63.

The Dunlap's Creek bridge was built as a part of the reconstruction of the National Pike undertaken by the Federal Government preparatory to turning it over to the respective States through which it passed.

George Washington personally located much of the route of the National Pike, first known as the Cumberland Road, across the mountains. However, it was not until 1818 that construction was undertaken in earnest. It was a project of the Federal Government and, with the possible exception of the famous Richardson Highway in Alaska, the only important roadbuilding of its kind. It is said to be the longest continuous paved road in the world.

OLD STONE BRIDGE OVER THE MONOCACY RIVER, ABOUT THREE MILES EAST OF FREDERICK, MD.

The bridge is as solid as the year it was built; but the inscriptions on the "jug" or "bottle" at the eastern end have become partly illegible.