to say tha^an ordinary earth road, with proper provision for drainage, which is
well maintained with a road drag is a better and more economical road for traffic
than a costly waterbound macadam road which has been allowed to go to pieces
from wear and weather and which is found too expensive to maintain.

Mistakes in Promoting Macadam Roads.

In the early days of the good roads movement in the United States, very
few of those who were active in the campaign for good roads construction realized
what a burden was to be imposed upon the public by the maintenance of the roads
that were built. Few understand that the waterbound macadam road, which was
the standard of good road construction for many years and in many places is still
being built, not only cost from $5,000 to $10,000 a mile to build, but would require
a perpetual expense of from $500 to $1,000 per mile per annum to maintain. This
is now so well established by wide experience that there should be no further
mistakes on this score. A highway should be given a hard surface, of course,
wherever the traffic justifies it and wherever the hard surface once built can be
perpetually maintained. If this cannot be done, however, then the best thing to
do is to build and maintain a good earth road.

Roads for Arid Districts.

In the arid and semi-arid regions of South America as in large areas of the
United States where similar conditions prevail, the road builders problem is com-
paratively simple. There are vast areas of level plains where the natural soil
will support the wheels of the ordinary freighting wagon, and where almost no
preparation is required to make a road good enough for the small amount of
traffic that will use it. There are other regions of course where drifting sands
or alkali flats, which become impassable when infrequent drains occur, give special
problems for the roadmaker to solve. What has been said above with reference
to the use of very narrow roadways does not apply of course to conditions such
as these.

Surfacing for Earth Roads.

Where tne volume of traffic and the other conditions are such as to make
it worth while to consider the use of some firmer material than the natural earth
for the surface of a road, the first resort will of course be to gravel, provided of
course that gravel is obtainable within practical hauling distance of the road to
be surfaced. There are all grades of gravel. The ideal gravel for road building
has a mixture of coarse and fine particles with enough loam or sand to fill the
interstices and make an impervious surface when the road is compacted by traffic.
The poorer gravels have a large percentage of voids and the soil which fills these
may act as lubricant of the gravel particles allowing them to move on each other
so that the road crust may be broken through by heavy loads.

Whether or not it is worth while to incur the cost of surfacing a road with
gravel may be determined by such a computation as has already been described.
A good earth road, well maintained in a favorable climate, may serve a very con-
siderable traffic for a long time before it will pay to apply gravel. On the other



ENGINEERING AIDS TO COMMERCE 329

hand an earth road in a sticky clay which becomes a quagmire at certain seasons
of the year, and where a good road gravel is within easy reach should be sur-
faced when its traffic is much smaller than in the preceding case.

It is safe to adopt a gravel road very much sooner than it would be safe
to go to a broken stone macadam road, for the gravel road will stand neglect
much better than a broken stone road and it can be maintained under moderate
traffic at much less expense.

The Sand Clay Road.

There are occasional localities where gravel is not obtainable at reasonable
expense and where a road may be surfaced with a mixture of sand and clay with
very satisfactory results. This road too, like the gravel road, may be maintained
by use of the road drag, which greatly reduces the cost of keeping the road in
order, and also makes it much more favorable for use by traffic. Ample informa-
tion upon this type of road is furnished in the standard text-books on highway
building and maintenance. It is merely desired to point out here the especial
applicability of this type of roadway to the conditions in South and Central
America where economy in first cost is essential for the reasons already set forth.

Economic Haulage Over Feeder Highways,

The problem of economic road construction and maintenance cannot be suc-
cessfully solved without a thorough knowledge of the various methods of haulage
over the completed highways. The road engineer must know in advance whether
he is building a highway for pack animals, for use by wagons, for passenger
automobiles or for freight transporting motor trucks.

Only the best and most expensive type of hard surfaced roadway is suitable
for motor truck use. A type of roadway somewhat less expensive is required
for satisfactory use by ordinary passenger automobiles the year round. The
earth road, however, at all times of the year in an arid climate and in dry
weather in a humid climate can be traveled readily by passenger automobiles. The
gravel and sand-clay roads, when properly maintained are among the most satis-
iactory types of roads for pleasure use.

There are probably few places at the present time in South and Central
America where the volume of traffic moved over a country highway is sufficient
to justify the use of heavy motor trucks, with the building of the roads which
they require. Even under the favorable conditions in the United States where the
prices of gasoline and supplies are comparatively low and where the question
of repairs is easily taken care of, the expense of carrying freight by motor under
commercial conditions on the best class of roads averages 15 to 30 cents or even
more per ton per mile. This cost is greatly exceeded where the tonnage to be
moved is seasonal in its character, so that the trucks have to lie idle a con-
siderable part of the year.

Under pioneer conditions in regions where good roads are non-existent
haulage with draft animals is still in most cases cheaper than the use of motor
trucks. The older method, too, has the advantage of simplicity and adaptability to
the use of the local labor obtainable. There may, of course, be local conditions
where the intensive traffic of a mill or a warehouse or the general conditions of
traffic around a large town or city may justify the use of motor trucks. On the
country feeder lines to railways, which are chiefly here considered however, there
are few cases where trucks will be as economical as the use of animal power.

Hauling Lai*ge Loads.

It is well to point out in this connection that for economic haulage the
attempt should always be made to handle as large loads as the traffic conditions
and the roadway will justify. An investigation by the United States Department of
Agriculture some years ago showed that farm products were being hauled to
market at much lower cost per ton per mile in the pioneer unsettled regions of
the Rocky Mountain and Pacific States where very few good roads exist, than
they were in the long-settled regions of the East where there are plenty of good,
well-maintained roads. The reason for this was that in the East hauling is almost
always done with a team of only two animals, whereas in the pioneer districts
of the West, where hauling was done over long distances and carried on as a
business, large wagons carrying several tons load and hauled by six to ten draft
animals were in common use.



330 SECOND PAN AMERICAN COMMERCIAL CONFERENCE

Broad Tires,

Large wagons with heavy loads were usable, it should be noted, on the
primitive roads in the far West because of the arid climate. They were, however,
equipped with very broad tires. It is well to emphasize that wherever traffic
is moved over an earth road, every effort should be made by those responsible
for the establishment of economic transportation to induce the use of wide tires
on the wagons. With such tires the cost of road maintenance is greatly de-
creased and the road is kept in comparatively good condition even under a very
considerable traffic, except in extremely wet weather. Laws and ordinances re-
mitting taxation on vehicles having tires of a certain width have had good results,
and it is wise to go even further and prohibit the use of tires below a certain width.

The transportation system of a nation is so important to its prosperity that
such measures are demanded in the public interest. It is folly, when roads are
paid for and maintained out of the proceeds of public taxa^n, to allow the in-
dividual to make free use of them, except with approved vehicles that will effect
the least possible injury to their surface.



NEED OF A COMMERCIAL NOMENCLATURE

BY DR. CESAR ZUMETA, OF VENEZUELA
(Read at the Afternoon Session of Thursday, June 5.)

Whenever a fresh effort is made towards the harmonious development of
the Americas by bringing together men from all their nations for the study and
advancement of their joint interests it is the duty of all those who have the wel-
fare of these continents at heart, to concur and help their utmost to the success
of such endeavors, happily and continually renewed by the greatest agency of
inter- American friendship, the Pan American Union ; as it is also their clear
obligation to hamper and denounce any tendency contrary to that spirit of loyal
and friendly cooperation and fair play, based in the overwhelming truth that the
various interests of the American commonwealths are not fundamentally con-
flicting nor antagonic, but complementary; that to love one's country does not
imply disregard of, nor enmity to the others, that all these countries need each
other and are each and severally best served and welded for their own and the
world's good, by mutual respect and amity.

Every element of misinterpretation is a disturbing and separating agency,
and not the least of them is the perplexity brought about by the process of differ-
entiation going on in the language spoken in eighteen of those Republics. Long
periods of, practically no commercial intercourse among them and half a cen-
tury of vertiginous progress in their trade with nations speaking other languages
and bringing forth new improvements and inventions, have 1 combined to create
such a number of different local names for the same article of commerce or in-
dustry, that the resulting Babelism bids well to cause incalculable economic wastage
and petty hindrances to trade and commerce. Hundred items of an industrial
catalogue, of circulars and statistics, of legal, customs and consular documents
translated from and into Spanish, may have the most different meanings and un-
meanings in the various Spanish speaking lands, or in distant commercial centres
of the same political entity, and originate unending misunderstandings.

The designation of Latin America, which to many represent a somewhat
homogeneous whole, covers a vast multitude of divergences. In the same way
that it is useless to try to build a trade in those twenty countries without having
in each of them a specialist acting as representative or agent of the manufacturer,
to advise him of the thousand and one peculiarities of the market in that line, so
it is misleading to assume that, without experts in the commercial vocabulary of
each region you can get along without costly surprises.

The Inter-American conferences have given serious thought to this matter,
and since its earliest days the old Bureau of the American Republics suggested the
convenience of preparing a nomenclature giving the correct equivalent of the
several localisms, in each of the four great languages spoken in this hemisphere.

The second American Conference, through the initiative of the distinguished
Mexican delegate, Senor Matias Romero and his able Peruvian colleague Dr.



ENGINEERING AIDS TO COMMERCE 331

Zegarra, recommended "to the governments represented, the adoption of a com-
mon nomenclature which shall designate in equivalent terms in English, Spanish
and Portuguese the commodities on which import duties are levied, to serve as a
basis for custom documents, etc." This is really one of the tasks devolving upon
the Customs Congress and, to a certain extent, upon the Pan American Committees
recommended by the Third Pan American Conference, at Rio. Finally at the
4th International Conference of the American Republics, at Buenos Aires, at the
earnest instance of the Venezuelan and Chilean Delegations, heartily aided by the
illustrious Cuban Delegate, Senor Montoro, a resolution was again unanimously
adopted ''urging the Pan American Union to prepare a nomenclature of the differ-
ent expressions and synonyms employed in the countries of America to designate
the same articles and products, with their English, Spanish, French and Portu-
guese equivalents." The resolution recommended further that the Pan Ameri-
can committees should "formulate and communicate to the Union the lists of
articles, etc."

Aside from this repeated and unanimous votes, nothing else has been accom-
plished in the premises, undoubtedly because the several conferences did not leave
entirely and solely to the Pan American Union the responsibility of the work and
the charge of finding the best way of carrying it into effect.

The enterprise, though, is of such an urgent character, that from economic
and philological standpoints and also for weighty reasons of expediency, it is ad-
visable to stop this rapid disintegrating tendency towards the Ex unum pluribus
in the Spanish language, and not to delay any further the compilation of what the
Chilean delegates at Buenos Aires called a "dictionary," which should be the
"basis of commercial statistics and custom procedure in the republics of this con-
tinent." There must be a standard guide that, giving due place to every legiti-
mate Americanism, shall list all existing localisms and barbarisms of the American
countries, and give the accepted or propose the acceptable Spanish equivalent and
the corresponding English, Portuguese and French words.

It is, therefore, suggested that the Pan American Union be urged to prepare
a nomenclature of the different expressions and synonyms used in the countries
of America to designate the same articles, products and technical terms, with their
English, Spanish, Portuguese and French equivalents, in the manner and with
the complementary data considered best and most useful by the Pan American
Union.



NEED FOR A COMMON TECHNICAL VOCABULARY IN COUNTRIES OF

SPANISH SPEECH

BY V. L. HAVENS, EDITOR, "INGENIERIA INTERNACIONAL/' NEW YORK.
(Read at the Afternoon Session of Thursday, June 5)

The Spanish language is one of the comparatively few modern tongues that
is controlled almost absolutely in its growth by some one central authority. The
Royal Academy of Spain is, and has been for all the years since its organization,
the most influential factor in the maintenance of purity as well as growth in the
Spanish language.

From the very nature of the class of work which the worthy members of
this Academy do, it is natural that they should be selected from the literary or
pedagogic class of society, .naturally inclined to lay great stress on the immutability
of language, and naturally inclined to cling tenaciously to the recognized forms of
speech.

Unfortunately the wonderful scientific and commercial growth of the world
during the last century has not been equalled by a corresponding expansion in the
Spanish language, in a great part due to the ultra conservative attitude of the
Royal Academy, although likewise due in no small part to the retarded industrial
development of a considerable portion of the Spanish speaking world.

We all know that words will be coined to fit a given article or idea utterly
regardless of the attitude which any language authority may assume. The only
result which withholding the recognition of the word may have is to limit its
use to comparatively small territories.

The result of ultra conversatism in the recognition and acceptance of new
words by the Academy either newly coined words or words accepted from other



332 SECOND PAN AMERICAN COMMERCIAL CONFERENCE

languages has, no doubt, had an effect exactly contrary to that original thought
that brought about the organization of the Academy. If a certain industry requires
a certain tool for the specific use and this tool is invented to meet that need, that
tool is going to have a name which will at least be accepted where it is made and
by the purchasers .who become familiar with it. In course of time, the idea of the.
tool or the need for it will reach distant centers and a similar tool will be de-
veloped, and perhaps a totally different name will be applied. If, when this tool
is invented, the Royal Academy should, after consultation with competent men,
decide on the acceptance of the corresponding word, not only the tool itself but
the idea and its use would be immediately distributed throughout the world in
such a way as to be of value to those who read. If the Academy refuses to accept
the word the result is that a different one will be used in each industrial center
and in course of time as words multiply the use of dialects become common and that
is exactly the condition which is encountered as regards modern tools throughout
the Spanish speaking world.

The tendency then is that the Royal Academy should become the repository
of the old dead forms of speech which would in many instances sink into oblivion
were they not clung to so persistently and tenaciously by the academicians, who
have been accused more than once of being a retarding influence in the growth of
the scientific and industrial education of their people.

Another contributory factor in the use of varied technical terms is that
throughput Latin American there has been an enormous investment of foreign
capital in those countries, this capital being used for the beneficial purpose of
building up the industry and developing the economic status of the regions where
they have located. However, the industries being new, it was difficult to secure
skilled men in the vicinity of the work to take charge of the equipment and ma-
chines and operate them. A French engineer has, for example, been placed in
charge of a certain smelter jn a particular mining camp. Very few of the local
persons might be familiar with the various machinery that goes into a smelter and
they ask the French superintendent, who, possibly, being ignorant of Spanish per-
haps explains the word in French and this word is immediately Spanishized by
his listeners, the result being a strange rare word not found in any dictionary nor
acceptable anywhere on earth except where that particular French superintendent
is employed. A hundred kilometers away there may be another smelter in charge
of an English speaking person, and they immediately proceed to manufacture
their own vocabulary based on English forms because the modern equipment may
not be mentioned in the Spanish dictionary.

Regardless of what the attitude of the Royal Academy has been in times
past, it is a fact that they are largely responsible for the comparative poverty of
their language in technical terms, and they are largely responsible for the condition
that a given machine may have one name in Coruna, an entirely different one in
Mexico or Buenos Aires, and yet another in Chile or Peru. There have been
technical dictionaries prepared in Spanish, but unfortunately those with which the
speaker has come in contact have been prepared by foreigners utterly out of touch
with the specific nomenclature in Spain, or the various countries of Spanish
speech, and the result of these efforts has been a disillusion. The speaker has had
considerable experience with translators from English to Spanish and from Spanish
to English, and he has yet to see the translation of an article of any length, or book,
by any person that had not been subjected to criticism by others of Spanish speech
to the effect that the translator had committed many grievious errors in the use of
colloquialisms, provincialism, anglicisms, gallicisms, and almost every other kind of
ism of which one might be accused while really feeling that he was innocent.

During the last year one of the most important corporations in the American
industrial field attempted the translation of their catalogue from English to
Spanish. Their representatives live in almost every important commercial center
of the world, and practically every representative of the company in foreign cities
is well educated, not only generally, but specifically as regards his own field, and
certainly should understand the vocabulary which is used for the product which
he sells. The translation of the technical words representing the products of this
great corporation was placed in the hands of several agents in Spanish speaking
countries, and there was a conference of these men for the final comparison of
terms. Words which were in common use and acceptance on the west coast of
South America were in many cases utterly unknown in Spain and of very doubtful
meaning on the east coast of South America. The reverse was likewise true, and
in one particular instance, a material which is exported from four or five of the



ENGINEERING AIDS TO COMMERCE 333

great industrial countries, and is commercially known to practically every citizen,
has at least a half a dozen names in South America, and each representative of
this corporation was quite unwilling to admit the use of any word in the catalogue
except those which they had found to be of common use among the people where
they resided.

The above statement consists almost conclusively of adverse criticism which
would in no sense be justified should it be unaccompanied with some suggestions
that might lead us to a clear understanding and closer intellectual relations. It is
indeed impossible that intensive commercial or industrial relations be carried on
between persons or peoples who cannot understand each other's minds. It is to a
great measure due to these conditions that so many complaints occur in international
trading. It is, therefore, suggested that through the good offices of the Pan
American Union that each of the Governments whose people are represented in
this conference be asked to select with reasonable care an engineer allied with their
own National University, and thoroughly versed in the technical literature and the
custom house terminology of their own country, preferably one which is likewise fa-
miliar with one or two other tongues, for the purpose of clarifying many doubtful
points. The engineers would no doubt be glad to consult industrials in their own vicin-
ity regarding the technical use of words or the local names of things. There could
be one central office or secretaryship agreed upon and communication by corre-
spondence established. It is not expected that there would be any expense in con-
nection with such an unofficial organization, and there is no doubt that much good
could be accomplished thereby. It is suggested further that in view of the fact
that Spain is not represented in this Conference, but is nevertheless the country of
greatest population among those of Spanish speech, that a recognized Spanish
engineer be also asked to lend his aid. After the choice of words it would seem
desirable that each of the National Universities represented by their engineer agree
to make use of that word as expressing the particular thought or idea or thing;
concerned. In order that the results of such correspondence be made known among
engineers it would be desirable that they be published in a leading technical paper
in order that all other engineers might learn the result of the correspondence of
the unofficial committee and make other things known should they be adverse ta
the decisions of the committee. There is no doubt in the speaker's mind that the
result of a choice of words in this manner would have a considerable influence
with the Royal Academy, and should the dictionary of the Spanish language be
lacking in the corresponding word, and should the word apparently Have the sup-
port of those who are most apt to use it, it might reasonably be inferred that it
would be incorporated in the current dictionaries very promptly.

There would be perhaps an insurmountable difficulty in finding an engineer in
each country competent to express the proper information regarding all technical
words, but it would be expected that he would consult the persons most authorized