Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/138

 mischief as the wheels. It is driving horses in a string that makes a road what the country people call "gridironed;" it is an odd expression, but it is a very significant one.

Do you not believe, that if horses were attached to narrow wheeled waggons in pairs, it would be found very considerably easier to drive and guide them when abreast, than when placed at length?—I should think it would.

And would it not tend to prevent accidents?—Horses driven in pairs would provide in a great measure against the accidents that arise from the carelessness of those persons who drive them, which is extremely great.

Do you think that if horses were put in pairs to waggons, the power of holding back those waggons when going down a hill, would be so much increased as to prevent the necessity of so frequently locking the wheels?—Certainly it would; because on certain slopes it would not be necessary to lock the wheels; but there are very steep hills where you cannot do without locking.

Is not locking wheels an operation extremely injurious to the roads?—I am not prepared to say it is, if the drag-iron, as it is called, be of a proper description. I followed a waggon lately, with seven tons of timber on it, down Park-street, at Bristol, being a very steep road, with both its hind wheels locked; and this waggon, with this weight of timber on in and with both the hind wheels locked, did not make the least impression from the top of the street to the bottom. You could discern where the drag-irons had gone, but they had not displaced the materials nor done any mischief.

Don't you find locking generally injurious?—Extremely injurious; on rough roads it is dreadful.

Would not fewer ruts be made if it were more the custom for horses to draw in pairs?—I believe gentlemen are not generally aware of what a rut consists. There are two kinds of ruts, generally speaking: one is a rut produced by displacing ill-prepared materials, and that is the common rut. When a road is made of