Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/194

 though equally expensive as paving, have peculiar disadvantages; and they have this besides, which is common them both, that they make no provision for preventing the great wear upon gravelled roads, which is caused by the horses' feet, particularly if (as is the case in a rail-road) they are confined in one track.

Attention in the forming and repairing of roads, will in all cases do much to compensate for the inferiority of the material used for that purpose, of which the improvements in the general state of the highways within the last twenty years affords the best proof. To form the road upon a good foundation, and to keep the surface clear of water after it is formed, are the two most essential points towards having the best roads possible, upon a given country, and with given materials. For obtaining the first of these objects, it is essential that the line for the road be taken so that the foundation can be kept dry either by avoiding low ground by raising the surface of the road above the level of the ground on each side of it, or by drawing off the water by means of side drains. The other object, viz. that of clearing the road of water, is best secured by selecting a course for the road which is not horizontally level, so that the surface of the road may in its longitudinal section, form in some degree an inclined plane; and when this cannot be obtained, owing to the extreme flatness of the country, an artificial inclination may generally be made. When a road is so formed, every wheel-track that is made, being in the line of the inclination, becomes a channel for carrying off the water, much more effectually than can be done by a curvature in the cross section or rise in the middle of the road, without the danger, or other disadvantages which necessarily attend the rounding a road much in the middle. I consider a fall of about one inch and a half in ten feet, to be a minimum in this