The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1890-07-04
ROAD MeNplNe IN FRANCE.
How the Highways OF the Republic Arc
Kept In Order.


Mr.. Joseph Pennell gives the following
interesting account in Harper's Weekly
of road mending in France:
After the road has been constructed
comes the important part-tle mending
of it. AS has been said, this is most
costly. So marvelously is it done in
France that can scarcely expect any
one to believe the statements am about
to make. The great military roads of
France, Les Routes Nationales, radiate
from the large cities like the spokes of a
wheel.
They are all marked with kilomerer
stones, kilometYe being about five
eighths of mile. The stones are about
two feet and half high, foot and q
half broad, and foot thick. AS you
approach the first stone you will notice
on the side nearest you the name of the
next important town, with its distance
in kilometers and meters. On its face,
following the lines OF its semicircular
top, you will read grande route number
so and so, and below the name of the
great city from which it starts and the
great city to which it goes, say Paris and
Marseilles, and the actual distance to
each by this road. On the other side is
the distance from the large town from
which you started.
Every hundred meters you will see a
neat little white stone with the number
inscribed on it. AS there are thousand
meters in kilometer, there are ten of
these stones, and when you come to each
you can tell exactly the distance you
have made. The fifth stone, which marks
the half way distance between the two
kilometer stones, is usually little larger
than the others. AS you pass from one
of the eighty-six departments of France
into another you will see larger stone
marking the boundary line and record
ing the distance to many important
points. II the gradient becomes at all
steep, the fact will be announced some
what as it is at the side of railway, and
there are several other marks used by
the engineers which do not understand.
On the first house in each village APP
preaching from either end you will find
the name of that village clearly written
in white letters on blue ground on a
metal plate, the name of the village you
have just left, with the distance, an ar
row pointing in its direction, the name
of the one you are coming to and the
names of the nearest large cities both
ways. AT all cross roads you will find
the same information. The kilometer
stones themselves are painted white, and
,Hn,-, ,,,1 - into
stone to protect them from the rain, and
painted black.
The roadway is wide enough for two
or three teams to pass. Beyond is a
sweep of beautifully kept grass, and be-
You'd again twogreat deep cutters, out
side of which is a bank of earth higher
than the fields which it bounds, keeping
all the water, if there should be any,
back in the fields and off the roads.
Every hundred feet or so, cut IN the
grass by taking the turf out, is a small
gutter, through which any water which
may fall in the road is drained into the
deeper gutter. As you ride along you
will see that the road is divided by nova
bic tin signs with cantonniers on them.
Near these signs, which are usually
about a mile or two apart, you will find
a man breaking stones small enough to
go through a two and half inch ring,
piling the broken stone up I'm a symmet-
rical mass like house roof, which must
exactly fit into q skeleton frame the can
tonnier places over it. These stone
breakers are at work spring, summer
and autumn.
Other men will be picking up the drop
pings on the road, putting them in
wheelbarrow, in another part of which
is fresh sand to sprinkle over the place,
and they carry rakes and brooms to touch
up any imperfections on the surface, for
such thing as loose stone or a lump
of dirt is almost unknown. Having
gathered anything which may have
fallen from passing carts or wagons
for the horses hoofs do not kick up the
surface of the road, nor do the wheels
grind into teach goes over the whole
of his allotted space with a broom about
ten feet long, sweeping off the sand,
which is taken away and stored for fu-
ture use or sold.
This is kept up daily from April till
October, and so thoroughly that, though
have travelled over the roads of France
in both the wettest and driest summers
and autumns, have never found half an
inch of dust or mud on the Grandes
Routes. The cantonniers, when any dis
lance from villages or towns, have houses
in which they live, and they go to their
work morning and evening between the
magnificent avenues of poplars in the
north, of expresses in the south, of syca-
mores, which line so many roads of the
Midi. 1t is absurd to say the roads are
like those of a park, for in no park out of
France are they egnaled.
The shape for Road Surface.