man cannot improve upon. A rare instance of this is the course of the Baltimore and Ohio railway between Grafton and Parkersburg in West Virginia. That this is one of the roughest rides our palatial trains of today make is well known to all who have passed that way, and that so fine a road could be put through such a rough country is one of the marvels of engineering science. But leave the train, say, at the little hamlet of Petroleum, West Virginia, and find on the hill the famous old-time thoroughfare of the buffalo, Indian, and pioneer and follow that narrow "thread of soil" westward to the Ohio river. You will find that the railway has followed it steadily throughout its course and when it came to a more difficult point than usual, where the railway is compelled to tunnel at the strategic point of least elevation, in two instances the trail runs exactly over the tunnel. This occurs at both "Eaton's" tunnel, and "Gorham's" tunnel (or "No. 6").
With the deterioration of the civilization to which the mound-building Indians belonged, the art of road-building became lost—for the great need had passed away.
