of prosperity. The road was built as a necessity for Tapline's project, but for more than a year now the Middle East public has taken free shares in it. Now for the first time in history it is possible to make motor round trips between Mediterranean ports, Persia, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf shore of Saudi Arabia. Over this road built for a pipe line trucks now are speeding hundreds of miles to carry fruits and vegetables and other goods from the Mediterranean area to the Persian Gulf markets.

All in all the Tapline project has been the biggest transportation and trucking job of any pipe line. Before the last 93-foot sections of pipe were welded there had been three billion ton miles of ocean shipping and 150 million ton miles of field trucking, the latter over those specially-constructed roads now so blithely used by the truck gardeners from the Mediterranean end.

The physical obstacles to success of this great adventure have been mentioned. As it turned out there were other obstacles which could not have been evaluated in advance and which delayed the undertaking by a full year.

In the first place there was the Palestine war. That conflict caused considerable delay along the section of the line skirting Palestine.

The other great delay came from Washington. Any such project as this must be approved by the Department of Commerce. And when that approval was obtained for Tapline, it was necessary to receive