60: A MONUMENT TO MAN'S MIGHT IN ENGINEERING AND ROAD BUILDING

YOU are riding down Highway 60 about fifty-five miles northeast of Globe in Arizona. You see the highway is in the making, you note casually, if you are the average man, there have been heavy rock cuttings and big fills across portentous canyons and perhaps you feel the guidance the road itself keeps upon your car. You may, in a moment of discernment, get a fourth dimensional insight of tangent flowing into curve, of the curve banking high to protect you in themechanical conflict between gravity and centrifugal force, and then of curve easing itself into the ideal tagent. You thrill at the mighty carvings of nature in the awesome canyons beside you, of cliffs towering alongside, their impressive height not in your range of vision because of the limitation of car tops. Later in Globe or Phoenix, at a table with snowy napery and excellent cuisine, you tell rather bored friends, "Just got in over Highway 60. Say, that's some road. The old bus made sixty 'most all the way."

YOU are the average man. Others, a few, will dimly sense the need of such a highway, the economics concerned, the part it will take in national life from sea to sea, the disclosing of a territory larger than some states to the ken of those who delight in an elemental wilderness of unsurpassed grandeur. You, Mr. Autoist, see the road, benefit from its engineering artistry and to some extent realize what thought and technical research have done to make the drive less tiresome, more delightful to the senses and above all to provide the maximumThat's about what you'll see on 60 if of safety for you and the cherished mem-

members of your family under your care. But there is much of this you do not see, much that will never be known because those who make these miracles of transportation are inarticulate. They do this work, they vision great things and with the surety of knowledge, of ingenuity to meet every unforeseen obstacle, they carve from the grim mountainside a superb highwaythe vision realized. But they do not tell us about it.

The drafting table and the book of logarithms, the steel tape and the exact transit are not the playthings of voluble men-these are the tools of the silent ones who spend themselves in an epic fight to make a highway down which travel shall roll in smooth safety, along which a tide of goods may pass in peaceful days and over which if war befalls troops and the sombre equipment of battles shall quickly mobilize.

Strange as it may seem the rugged mountains in the vicinity of Salt River crossing on 60 are a marine formationthere is sandstone, strata of limestone and some fair marble-crystallized lime. Shale, which is the dried mud of ocean beds laid down in remote geologic eras, is the filler between the other formations. When cataclysmic earth changes lifted this region it was probably into a climate warm and vaporous. Quickly the chill and leperous oozes of the new land spawned a wealth of primitive vegetable and animal life and the processes of nature, of growth and decay, of evolution of some species and the oblivion of many more, went on in the patient tirelessness of creation.

Came times when erosion had finished its sculpturings and climatic changes had slowed the weathering of the rocks. Man had become dominant and his growth depended upon quick and facile communication. He laid his road between busy marts and populous centers. Then he found he should not wait until the need of a road had become great-it was imperative that he plan and construct before that need became overwhelming. Thus have our highway systems grown and thus Highway 60 came to be projected across our maps and on our terrain in actuality.

In such a land as we have described a thorough knowledge of the geologic structure is imperative. Learned men investigated this region, they studied the land masses and formed opinions regarding the stability of the structures. These rocks would stand deep cuts excavated through them, the embankments would not slide away; the mountains were not filled with water to be tappedat every cut and present problems almost past solving.

Then came the location engineers. With them the project began to take on a warm humanity. An engineer is not made up of cogs and wires and wheels like a calculating machine with ice water in his veins and winter in his heart, nor is he a slave of figures and a worshiper of formulae. Instead he is usually a man of superabundant vitality, a hater of shams and a mocker of conventions, keen of wit, excessively inquiring, a dreamer of dreams who integrates his dreams with an excess of practicality, childlike in his enthusiasms and intense in his interests. Road location is an adventure of mind Behind the story of Highway 60 is a mighty epic of roadbuilding accomplishment that you may travel swiftly and safely through a wilderness of grandeur.

and a contest of body with nature. The work itself is arduous and every minute of the day demands decisions which in volve expense. The chief location engineer observes the general route and notes the favorable features, weighs one possible course against another. The surveying crew, however, gathers the data in detail. These men are usually young, dependable and reckless of everyEverything but work. They have a sign language which is meaningless to the uninitiated but which can convey any information about the work and often some startling gossip not pertinent to anything on location. Along with this is a rapid fire oral comment half English and half Mexican. It is marvelous to watch the instrument man as he directs his party by signals, keeps up a blistering comment on the actions of the boys, keeps an involved mathematical series in his head and at the same time develops a fantastic theory of life founded upon no facts whatsoever. It is efficiency in the nth degree and the accuracy of the notes gathered is such that the proposed highway can be definitely fitted to the terrain.

Another function of the location party not often considered by the public is the information gathered about the drainage. Every water course is explored, its water shed computed and then allowance is made for a larger flood than any man has seen in this particular section.

Should the motorist look down from some of these high embankments spanning the drainage courses he would see some concrete headwalls comparatively insignificant from his view point. But should he clamber down to the bottom a big surprise awaits him. Some of these structures if faced to a busy street would provide room for two large mercantile