Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/64

 for keeping the road smooth after being relaid, and while it is consolidating.

Very light broad-mouthed shovels, to spread the broken stone and to form the road.

Every road is to be made of broken stone without mixture of earth, clay, chalk, or any other matter that will imbibe water, and be affected with frost; nothing is to be laid on the clean stone on pretence of binding; broken stone will combine by its own angles into a smooth solid surface that cannot be affected by vicissitudes of weather, or displaced by the action of wheels, which will pass over it without a jolt, and consequently without injury.

PRICES.

The price of lifting a rough road, breaking the stones, forming the road, smoothing the surface, cleaning out the water-courses, and replacing the stone, leaving the road in a finished state, has been found in practice to be from one penny to two-pence per superficial yard, lifted four inches deep; the variation of price depends on the greater or lesser quantity of stone to be broken.

At two-pence per yard, a road of six yards wide will cost, therefore, one shilling per running yard, or 88l. per mile.

Any rough road may be rendered smooth and solid at this