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Show GEOLOGISTS REDUCE ROAD-BUILDING COSTS How the cost of building Wisconsin state trunk highways is being materially mate-rially reduced by the field investigations investiga-tions made by geologists, especially through the hunting out and using of local materials, is pointed out by E. F. Bean, assistant state -geologist and former professor In the University of Wisconsin, in an article on "Economic Geology and Highway Construction," which has been published as a reprint from Economic Geology. The Increased use of local materials which has been developed by the geologists' road-material investigations investiga-tions has not only reduced the cost of construction materially but has greatly great-ly decreased the use of railway cars for hauling road materials, he points out. Many university geology students have devoted their summers to the geological end of highway work and this, he points out, greatly extended the scope of this work. From the students' stu-dents' point of view, summer field work In connection with highway building has furnished a wide range of field experience. The first step In the geologist's Investigation In-vestigation is to determine what types of road material are available locally for that particular project. He then recommends such local material as may be used to save freight charges or truck haul. Detailed reports are made on the results of the investigations, investiga-tions, and estimates are also furnished fur-nished on the quantity of material available, conditions of quarrying rock or getting out gravel and transportation transporta-tion problems. The aim of such studies is to furnish good road construction at the lowest cost possible without sacrificing service and efficiency. "In addition to the financial saving, the use of local material has a direct bearing on the problem of rail transportation," trans-portation," Mr. Bean writes. "The use of local road materials relieves the railroad of this additional load and liberates cars for the use of coal and other commodities, and In addition prevents expensive delays in highway construction." |