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Some wise people laughed at the idea of the pyrotechnics and parachutes.

"I didn't know this was a-goin' to be a skyrocket road," said one peach-grower to another as he saw a red glare streaking the evening sky. "I sh'd think the time to set off the fireworks would be after the job was done."

Now the why and wherefore of the skyrockets was this: Southern Delaware, where the survey work was begun, is a flat country and affords no opportunity to employ the usual methods of location by observation from elevations. Such being the case and as there were no adequate maps of that part of the State, it was necessary to evolve some scheme to connect desirable points without running numerous random lines. The engineers puzzled over this problem for some time.

"We're practically working in the dark," remarked an engineer to Mr. Du Pont.

"Well, if that's the case," was the quick reply of the great road-builder, "why not light up a bit? How about skyrockets?"

"Just the thing," said the engineer. But it was found on trial that the rockets did not remain long enough in the air to afford sufficient opportunity for observation. So Mr. Du Pont had heavier rockets brought in and to these he had parachutes attached, each parachute carrying a light of changing colors and staying up long enough to afford a "sight" from one distant point to another. Some of the bigger rockets used weighed as much as eight pounds apiece. One night a survey party sent up a rocket that was plainly seen by another party fourteen miles. The line that was run from the "sight" thus taken struck the desired point within a few feet.

As for the motor campwagon, it was a very convenient and comfortable affair. It had large receptacles for instruments and tools and the "wings," as the tent portion of the device was called, were so arranged that they could be spread at a moment's notice whenever the party was overtaken by a storm or wished to camp for the night. I have seen a great many surveying parties in the field, but I have never seen any that

that was so well provided with means of rapid transportation over rough country. The motorwagon was built for any sort of road or no road at all, and, with the tenting combination, it illustrated Mr. Du Pont's clever way of going at a big enterprise. But what illustrated this in a larger way was the kind of men he gathered about him at the beginning of the work. No engineer was too good or too high-salaried for the Du Pont boulevard. The job if worth doing was worth doing well.

"Who are the best men I can get in the whole world to help me lay out this

road?" he asked of a well-known engi

neer.

"Ernest Storms of Brussels, Belgium, and Thomas Aitken of Cupar Fife, Scotland," was the prompt reply.

"All right; I shall engage them as consulting engineers. But I want an American for Chief Engineer. Who's the best man?"

"Frank M. Williams of New York," said his adviser. "He's a big man in that line and has a world-wide reputation." So after the first general observations the three men were engaged at large salaries and they immediately took the field. Storms is the celebrated Frenchman who supervised the construction of the magnificent roads built in Belgium for the late King Leopold. He is the author of several big books on the subject of roadmaking-marrowy books that are taken from the library shelves every day by engineers who want to know the best way of getting around a hard problem. Mr. Aitken is a county surveyor in the bestroaded region of Scotland, and is also a much-quoted authority. Mr. Williams is a man of wide experience in the construction of modern highways. His roads. are well-built and they wear. For his chief assistant Mr. Williams chose H. E. Breed, a man well up in this line of work. He is also aided by F. A. Rossell, an engineer of up-to-date ideas.

When the European, engineers came over and gazed at the low-lying, muddy, rutty, twisting streaks of bare earth charitably designated as roads in Delaware, they looked at each other and smiled. And Williams, the American engineer, smiled with them. For of all the maintraveled highways in all the country those of Delaware probably are the worst. There had been a heavy rain and as Mr. Du Pont's automobile, bearing the three engineers and the millionaire roadmaker went bumping and slushing along the flat, muddy, unshaded, desolate trail, and plunged into a long, shallow pond of surface water, the Scotchman looked at the Frenchman and exclaimed:

"And they call this a road! Weel, America's a great country, but they've got something to learn about road-making-that they have."

It was the drainage problem that puzzled the engineers at first. Flat as a pancake and only a few feet above sea level, the whole of Sussex County did not seem to afford any chance whatever for drainage. It was decided that the road would have to be so elevated as to make its own watershed. To raise what was going to be eventually a two-hundred-foot boulevard of that great length even a few feet above the surface was going to cost something, but Mr. Du Pont had expressed his willingness to see the

road through in good shape even if it took four million dollars to do it, and with money men can raise roads as well as mortgages.

The Sussex County headquarters were established at sleepy little Georgetown. A commodious house was hired and fitted with modern hotel and club accommodations, for Mr. Du Pont believes in making his men comfortable. After the preliminary surveys were run and a line was established through the county from Selbyville on the southern State border, through Millsboro, Georgetown, Lincoln and Milford, near the Kent County line, and roughly sketched from there northward through Dover, Smyrna and Wilmington to the Pennsylvania border, contracts were let for the building of a series of experimental roads, and these were constructed in the neighborhood of Georgetown, Selbyville and Milford. It was attempted to run traction engines and motor trucks southward through Sussex County for use in the building of these experimental sections, but so thick and heavy was the sand along the county roads that it was impossible for these self-propelled vehicles to make any progress. So they were shipped down by the Pennsylvania Railway and then driven along by makeshift means to the places where they were to be used.

Before actual construction was begun, Storms and Aitken made exhaustive studies of subsoil conditions, sinking a great number of test pits along the final survey. It was under their advice that the experimental sections of road were built. These sections were from fifty to five hundred feet in length, and different compositions, including concrete, oils, tars and asphalts and such bitulithic materials, soils and macadam as were to be found in the country, were

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utilized. This preliminary road-making was executed with thoroughness.

This work was done last summer and autumn, and was continued through the winter as the weather permitted. In the spring the work of main road construction was attacked in earnest under the superintendence of Mr. Williams. Mr. Du Pont was in the field much of the time. Never have I seen a better example of the influence of a big pet hobby upon the health of a man than that of this great enterprise upon Mr. Du Pont. From what I had heard of his bad health I expected, when I went to see him, to find an invalid. What I found was a pile of dynamite.

Beside carrying on

in the saddle or the auto twelve hours a day, and I take a lot of pleasure in the outdoor life. The work is going on well. I am trying to build the road where it will do the most good, and at the same time I am not going to devastate Nature any more than necessary. See that tree there. It's a beautiful one and it shades the road, but though it's almost in the middle of the right-of-way I'm going to let it stand and run the road to one side of it.

"The only thing that bothers me in this whole business is the attitude of the farmers. You would think that they would all be glad to see the road built, considering the tremendous advantage it's going to be to them, but many of them will not give rights-of-way through their property, and where I offer to buy, they put preposterous figures on their holdings. One man had been offering his farm for $3500, but as soon as he heard the road was coming he ran the price up to $7000, on the ground that the boulevard was going to improve his place to that extent. Human nature!"

Human nature! And the man referred to is only one of hundreds who are blocking the road by their hostile attitude. There are others who profess to believe that the Du Pont boulevard is intended as a scheme to further enrich its projector who will turn his two-hundredfoot right-of-way over to the Wabash Railway in which he is said to be interested. Some say he wants it for a trolley line, and shake their heads when asked to grant a strip of land through their farms. I heard one old hayseed declare that he would be darned if he was going to let them biles run over his

the business of the new road and the old powder company he has on hand an array of other enterprises that would bewilder an ordinary man.

"Yes, it has been a good thing for me physically," he said to me. "Camping out is right in my line. I am able to be

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chickens, not if he could

help it.

Human nature! Yes, and human nature plus politics. It is hardly surprising to find in the State which gave the world a John Edward Addicks that every man you meet is a politician. Young men in Delaware are said to talk politics to their sweethearts while they are "sitting up" with them, and even to their grandmothers. There are daily upheavals, and as soon as a master mind thinks he has got things fixed up right, presto! Delaware is all against him. And so the politicians, and particularly the peach- and apple-growing politicians, are now fighting Du Pont and his road. Much hostility is expressed by farmers against the assembly for granting him the franchise, and yet next month, so fickle is popular opinion, the tide may turn in his favor. Just now it is decidedly unfavorable, and the work ceases from time to time under stress of litigation.

But surely here is madness. From a utilitarian point of view the road is going to be a big thing for Delaware, and the people, though all politicians, can hardly fail to see it. As showing human nature again and perverse human nature at that, it is a fact that the people of nearly all the larger centers not touched by the first survey are protesting against Du Pont's action in leaving them out. The good folk of Odessa and around there are so afraid that the road will not pass through their territory that some of the biggest landowners are laying out every inducement to be included in the route. Daniel W. Dan