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.
These roads are repaired by throwing a large quantity of unprepared gravel in the middle, and trusting that, by its never consolidating, it will in due time move towards the sides.
When a road has been originally well made, it will be easily repaired. Such a road can never become rough, or loose; though it will gradually wear thin and weak, in proportion to the use to which it is exposed; the amendment will then be made, by the addition of a quantity of materials prepared as at first. As there will be no expense on such road, between the first making and each subsequent repair, except the necessary attention to the water-ways, and to accidental injuries, the funds will be no longer burdened with the unceasing expenditure, at present experienced, from continual efforts at repairing, without amendment of the roads.
There cannot be a doubt, that all the roads in the kingdom may be made smooth and solid, in an equal degree, and to continue so at all seasons of the year. Their durability will of course depend on the strength of the materials of which they may be composed, but they will all be good while they last, and the only question that can arise respecting the kind of materials, is one of time and expence, but never of the immediate condition of the roads.
The anxious provisions of the Legislature for preservation of the roads have unfortunately taken precedence of measures for making roads fit to be travelled upon, or worth the care of being preserved. Will it be deemed presumptuous to propose, that some regulations may be adopted, for encouraging and promoting a better system of making roads, by eliciting the exertion of science, and by creating a set of officers of skill, and reputation, to superintend this most essential branch of domestic economy?
When roads are properly made, very few regulations are necessary for their preservation. It is certainly useful to make effectual provision for keeping clear the watercourses, for removing nuisances, and for the pruning of trees and hedges; for these purposes ample powers should be given to Commissioners; but the advantage of many existing regulations respecting wheeled carriages may very well be questioned. There can be no doubt that many of those regulations are oppressive to commerce and agriculture, by compelling an inconvenient construction of carriages.[[2]] The author has never observed any great difference of effect, on a well made road, by narrow or broad wheels; either of them will pass over a smooth, solid road, without leaving any visible impression: on rough, loose roads, the effect will certainly be different; but whether a loose and rough road can be amended by dragging an unwieldy carriage over it, or whether, if it were possible to amend roads by such means, it can be deemed the most economical for the nation at large, can hardly be subject of doubt.[[3]]