COMMUNICATIONS 
ROADS AND BRIDGES 
Up to the end of last century all transport in the interior of Ice- 
land had to be done by pack-horses; carts were almost unknown in 
the country and the roads were mere bridlepaths. But in 1884 an 
expert in road making was engaged from Norway to teach the Ice- 
landers how to make carriageable roads, and ten years later it was 
enacted by law, that carriage-ways should, at the expense of the State, 
be built from the chief towns into the country, and the administration 
of these matters placed in the hands of a civil engineer. From that 
date road making has progressed at a rapid pace and the grants voted 
for this purpose have increased every year. 
According to the Roads Act, all roads are divided into the follow- 
ing four classes: 1) National Roads, i. e. main roads through and be- 
tween districts, built and maintained entirely at the expense of the 
State. Of these Iceland now possesses some 2150 kilometres, whereof 
rather more than 1400 kilometres have already been made carriage- 
able; 2) District Roads which, though built through and between dis- 
tricts where the traffic is greatest, are not national roads proper. 
They are constructed at the expense of the districts concerned, except 
in so far as they may be made carriageable, in which case grants 
from the State are allowed of up to one-half of costs. To those 
districts which levy a special roads tax on their inhabitants, according 
to a law of 1923, a part of their total expenses of road making is refunded 
by the State, and the higher the rate levied, the larger is the grant 
from treasury; 3) Parish Roads are those lying through and between 
parishes, and are neither national nor district roads; they are built at 
the expense of the parishes; 4) Mountain Roads are called such roads 
as are made across mountain tracts and upland regions, and do not 
belong to any of the three foregoing classes: they are mostly bridle-