of constructing and repairing a road made by putting the surface materials on the natural soil, without a paved foundation; for, in point of fact, such a road has usually to be nearly new made every year for some years after it is first opened.* This method of making roads with a foundation of pavement is described in French works on roads. The following is taken from the Encyclopédie de l'Ingénieur, vol. i. page 356: "The first course of stones are to be from ten to twelve inches long, and nine inches deep. These are to be set by the hand on the bed of the road, *The superiority of roads made with a strong foundation has the testimony of those who practically can give the best opinion on the subject, namely, stage coachmen. The following certificate, signed by forty-three coachmen at Bath and Bristol, was laid before the Committee on Turnpike Roads of the Session of 1836: "We, the undersigned, having been daily or occasionally, during the last nine years, in the habit of driving public stage coaches over the roads leading to and from the cities of Bath and Bristol, do severally declare, as our opinions, that the plan which has been during that time pursued on the Bath turnpike roads, of making and keeping a strong foundation or bottom of large stones, of laying on at once thick coatings of small stones thereon, and of generally preserving a great degree of strength, renders those roads much harder, sounder, and easier of draught than the Bristol roads, where, a very different plan having been followed, the roads are consequently in general weak, unsound, and more distressing to horses drawing carriages; and we therefore think, that any change of plan on the Bath trust would be injurious to the roads and the public." This certificate was not laid before the House of Commons by the Committee. It was produced by Mr. Wingrove in support of his method of managing the Bath roads. with their broadest faces down and their pointed ends upwards: the interstices are to be filled with stone chips. The upper course of stones is to be of the hardest kind, broken to the size of an inch cube, on a large stone, as an anvil. "This course is to be nine inches in thickness, so that the whole thickness of the two courses will be eighteen inches." The bed of pavement, for the whole width of the road, may, in some instances, be too expensive, in consequence of the difficulty of procuring proper stone. In such instances it may be expedient to have only the eighteen middle feet of the carriage way with a foundation of pavement. (See Plate III. fig. 4.) In a district of country where any coarse sort of stone can be got for making a pavement, it will be cheaper to make a road with a pavement and six inches of broken stones than with ten inches of broken stones without a pavement. The following observations on the expediency of making a paved foundation for a road is taken from a Report of Mr. W. A. Provis, assistant engineer to Mr. Telford, under whose immediate direction. all the works on the Holyhead Road, in North Wales, were constructed: "The pitching or paving the bottom of a road is a subject which has often been discussed, and, though generally approved of by scientific men, has met with some decided opponents. "On the old part of the Shrewsbury and Holy head Road, which extends from Gobowen to Oswestry, as well as in some other places, the foundation of the road had been paved, but in an irregular and promiscuous manner, some of the stones standing near a foot above others, and in some places holes were left without any stones. Upon this a coat of gravel had been laid, and necessarily of very unequal thickness, some of the points of the stones being scarcely covered. "This road having afterwards been much neglected, the upper gravel, where thin, was worn quite away, or else forced from its bed by being in so thin a coat that it could not bind, and the road's surface was thereby made a continued succession of hard lumps and hollows, with water standing in every hole after a shower, and no means of getting off but by soaking through the road. 66 Any stranger, on passing over such a road, would condemn the principle on which it was made. But here seems to be the great error,that the principle is condemned, instead of the abuse of it. When the paving is put down carefully by hand, of equal or regular height, with no large smooth-faced stones for the upper stratum to slide upon, and the whole pinned so that no stone can move, I have no hesitation in saying that in many cases it is highly beneficial, and in none detrimental. Whenever the natural soil is clay, or retentive of water, the pavement acts as an under drain to carry off any water that may pass through the surface of the road. The component stones of the pavement, having broader bases to stand upon than those that are broken small, are not so liable to be pressed into the earth below, particularly where the soil is soft. The expense of setting this pavement is less than one fourth of that of breaking an equal depth of stones to the size generally used for upper coating; and therefore, in point of economy, it has also a material advantage. "Mr. Telford in all cases recommends this paving; and the opinion of a man of such experience cannot be treated slightly. He has made more miles of new road than any engineer in the kingdom; and having myself studied for nearly fifteen years in his school, and made a considerable extent of road under his direction, I may venture to say that his practice is not unsupported by experience. "I should not have said so much on this subject, but from the circumstance of other road improvers having asserted that paving was useless; and I think that assertions on one side should be met with firmness on the other, whenever an important principle is attacked, the correctness of which can be established by reasoning and by facts. "Whenever any new piece of road has been made, I have taken care that a good bottoming should first be put under the broken stones, because I am satisfied that it makes the road more substantial, and is also less expensive. Some of the new road made on this principle by the commissioners under the act of 55 Geo. III. has now and its present been travelled upon for four years, perfect state, I have no doubt, is owing to the firm foundation which was laid under the broken stones. I must refer to my last report for further particulars of its advantage; but as I did not then notice the comparative expense of the two modes of road-making, it is proper to state it here, in order to justify the course I have adopted. Supposing the materials are stone, to be quarried, and carted say a quarter of a mile on an average; that the stoning shall be in both cases sixteen feet wide; that, by Mr. Telford's mode, the bottoming shall be seven inches thick in the middle, and five inches at the sides, and the broken stones six inches in uniform thickness; and that by the other mode there shall be no bottoming, but ten inches in depth of broken stones : "The expense of a lineal yard on Mr. Telford's principle will be as follows: Quarrying 12 cubic yards of stone (mea- Setting the bottom Breaking the top 6 inches cube yard, at 1s. 6d. s. d. 2 11 0 10/12 · 1 4 5 31 "The expense of a lineal yard without bottoming would be, |