permanently satisfied. The study of any highway for itself alone might prove of indifferent value, even though it were an Appian Way; but the story of a road, which shows clearly the rise, nature, and passing of a nation's need for it, is of importance. It is not of national import that there was a Wilderness Road to Kentucky, but it is of utmost importance that a road through Cumberland Gap made possible the early settlement of Kentucky, in that Kentucky held the Mississippi river for the feeble colonies through days when everything in the West and the whole future of the American republic lay in a trembling balance. It is not of great importance that there was a Nemacolin's Path across the Alleghanies; but if for a moment we can see the rough trail as the young Major Washington saw it while the vanguard of the ill-fated Fry's army marched out of Wills Creek toward the Ohio, or if we can picture that terrible night's march Washington made from Fort Necessity when Jumonville's scouting party was run at last to cover by Half King's Indians, we shall know far better than ever the true story of
