The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1883-02-15
CSt. James's Gazette. ]
ROad-Making.

Scotch Turnpike acts had been about
twenty years in operation and roads
were still being made everywhere
He got appointed a commissioner OF
roads, and afterwards removed to Bris-
tol, where he obtained similar post
and was made magistrate. Gifted
with mania on the subject, he began
about 1894 to travel over the country
at his own cost; and these labors he
continued from Iverness to the Land
End for six-and-twenty years, for no
other purpose, apparently, than to
search for a well-made road and the
best means of making one. In this
way he spent nineteen hundred and
twenty days, covered thirty thousand
miles. and expended over $4,000
These facts being well known in Bris-
tol, he was in 1916 induced to take
the post of general surveyor to the
Turnpike Trust. which then managed
all the surrounding roads. These, to
the extent Of one hundred and forty
eight miles. were rapidly and entirely
reformed. and put into the bpstpossf
BILE state for use.at an expense consld-
erably within the annual revenue of
the Trust" which had previously been
in debt 1920 mile. This soon at
tracted general attention; his advice
and assistance were sought in all di-
rections. Meanwhile he must have
had correspondence greater than
that of minor government office. for
he explained his principles and plans
to every one with perfect candor; and
his enthusiasm was such that his gra-
tuitous services were at the disposal of
all who came to him or sent for him.
What was the talk of the whole coun-
try at length engaged the attention
of Parliament. and select committee
was appointed in 1919.
McAdam's plan Of road-making diff
fered as much from the old way
which he found in operation as a
bridge does from ford. Instead Of
going deep for a ''bottoming," he
worked solely ON top. Instead of pro-
ducing a peaked. roof-like mass Of
rough, soft rubbish. he got fiat,
smooth, and solid surface. In lieu Of
road four and half through, he
made one Of at most ten inches in
thickness; and for rocks and boulders
he substituted stone broken small.
His leading principle was that road
ought to be considered as an artificial
flooring, so strong and even as to let
the heaviest vehicle pass over it with
out impediment. Then people began
to hear with wonder of roads thirty
and forty feet wide rising only three
inches in the centre; and he pro-
pounded the extraordinary heresy that
better and more lasting road could
be made over the naked surface of a
morass than over solid rock. Another
of his easy first principles was that
the native soil was more resistant
when dry than when wet, and that, AS
in reality it had to carry not only the
traffic but the road also. it ought to be
kept in the condition of genteel re-
sistance; that the best way of keeping
it dry was to put over it covering
impervious to rain-the road, in fact;
and that the thickness of this cover
ing was to be regulated solely in rela-
tion to its nervousness. and not at
all as to its bearing of weights, to
which the native soil was quite equal
Instead of digging trench, therefore,
to do away with the surface of the
native soil. he carefully respected it,
and raised his road sufficiently above
it to let the water run off. Imper-
meability he obtained by the prac-
tical discovery that stones broken
small and shaken and pressed together,
as by the traffic on road, rapidly set
tied down face to face and angle to
angle, and made as close mass as a
wall. Mankind in general now be-
lieve that this last is all that McAdam
invented; the rest is forgotten. That
important fraction Of his discoveries
is what has given to US the verb to
macaddmize ''to pave road with
small broken stones"-Skeat), and to
the French their nouns-macadam
C'nom dun pavage invente par un
Anglais' s''-Littre) macadaDisage, and
the verb mdcadamiser. If a man is
knocked down by an omnibus in the
middle Of the boulevard, a Partisan
bystander will nowadays say: "Je Tai
WI tomber sur lie macadam.'
Surprise followed surprise. Roads
which were mere layers Of broken
stone, six. four. and even as little as
three inches in thickness, passed
through the worst winters without
breaking up. while, as the coachmen
used to say. they iran true; the wheel
ran hard upon them, it ran upon the
nail" Commissioners could not be-
lieve their eyes when they saw new
roads made for much less than it had
cost them yearly to repair their old
ones. When an old road was given
into McAdam's charge he often made
a new one of it for SSS mile, while
round London the cost of annual re-
pairs had been $40 mile For he
knew that the roads-such had been
the ignorant waste generally con-
tanned materials enough for their use
= for several years if properly applied.
Unless the road was hopeless, he went
to work in practical, cheap way;
first cutting off the 'gridiron" of ruts
in the centre ito a level with the bot
tom of the furrows;'' then picking
the road up to depth of four inches;
removing fall the chalk, clay, or mud
breaking the large stones small, and
simply putting them back again; and
one Of his direction to his workmrn
was that nothing is to be laid on the
clean stone on pretence of binding
But too often the road was so bad as
at Egham, that it had to be removed
to its foundations
For the repairs of his roads, wher
once made, he always chose wet
weather, and "loosened the hardened
surface with "a pick before putting
> on tie fresh broken stone; thing
familiar enough to us nov, but para