Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/87

 the law to new circumstances; that the first step requisite is to take effectual measures for ensuring the formation of good roads; and that their preservation afterwads, if proper principles for their repair be once adopted, will require fewer legislative regulations than former inquirers have deemed necessary.

For a full elucidation of the methods pursued by Mr. M'Adam your Committee beg leave to refer to his evidence in the Appendix annexed, as well as to that of his son, and of different Commissioners who had witnessed the success of his plans.

But though your Committee have limited their first inquiries to the actual state of the turnpike roads, and the results of recent plans for their improvement, they have by no means confined their researches to the operations or the opinions of one individual. In the evidence which they subjoin will be found, in the first place, a description of the present general defects of the turnpike roads, given by those whose employments and interest render them best acquainted with the nature and extent of the evil; and this exposition is followed not only by the detail of Mr. M'Adam's system, already alluded to, but by the evidence of other eminent surveyors and civil engineers, under whose superintend