Transportation facilities, particularly with respect to wagon roads, play a greater part in the opening up and development of a mineralized district than practically any other single item and are usually one of the first matters taken into consideration by a consulting engineer while making an examination of a mineral property. Many good properties have been turned down and many more have been worked at a loss owing to the roads and other means of transportation being in a poor condition than perhaps from any other single detail, and their condition can often be taken, for a working property, as a barometer of the management. 13