the form of a semi-transparent overlay. For this purpose it should not be necessary to show every early road, but rather the principal roads of the time. Indeed, to show more would probably only serve to further obscure the view of the reader.
Maps, or portions of them, used to illustrate either specific portions of text or specific areas of the county may be taken from historical maps such as those by the Confederate Engineers, or from plats, or they may be sketched to the particular purpose at hand. These, however, will then become an integral part of the text and are probably best considered under the heading of illustrations.
In some situations it also may be found useful to prepare a detailed set of geological survey maps as a part of the project. These would be very useful in areas undergoing rapid urbanisation where evidence of the early roads is being obliterated or is in danger of being so in the near future. These maps would not be published but rather would be placed upon completion in some convenient repository. Similarly prepared examples of this type of map are on deposit at the Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library at the University of Virginia in the previously noted volumes on architectural surveys along early Virginia road traces.
SUMMARY
The preceding points relating to what a road history should contain might be reduced to the following:
- Fifty years or less would seem to be the optimum length for
the first study of the roads of an area.
- Road orders should be published in an indexed volume or
series of them covering this period or that portion of it not
already covered in published volumes of road orders.
- Plats showing roads, if present in large numbers, should have
indexes prepared and published. Any other information of general
applicability developed during research should receive similar
treatment so as to make it easily retrievable.
- Site surveys are designed to help the researcher to interpret
the archival and cartographic information developed from state
and local records. Records or notes of site surveys, if kept,
might be stored with the detailed geological survey maps (also
optional) at some public repository.
- The matter of illustration will in many, if not most, cases allow, perhaps even require, innovation if undue repetition is to be avoided. Even if new sources of original prints and photographs are unearthed it will probably soon become necessary to produce for each work some (at least) original illustrations. These could be similar to those found in Convenient Wayes.
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