Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/33

 Flint makes an excellent road, if due attention be paid to the size; but from want of that attention, many of the flint roads are rough, loose, and expensive.

Limestone, when properly prepared and applied, makes a smooth, solid road, and becomes consolidated sooner than any other material; but from its nature is not the most lasting.

Whinstone is the most durable of all materials; and wherever it is well and judiciously applied, the roads are comparatively good and cheap.

The pebbles of Shropshire and Staffordshire, are of a hard substance, and only require a prudent application to be made good road materials.

On the other hand, the Scottish roads, made of the very best materials, which are abundant and cheap in every part of that country, are the most loose, rough, and expensive roads in the United Kingdom, owing to the unskilful use of the material.

The formation of roads is defective in most parts of the country; in particular the roads round London, are made high in the middle, in the form of a roof, by which means a carriage goes upon a dangerous slope, unless kept on the very centre of the road.