THE RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR. 125 



good roads. The roads lmilt by the Romans about 2000 

 years ago, some of which are in good condition yet, were 

 built with a rock bed many feet deep, the surface perfectly 

 flat, with no idea of drainage. Road makers of our day 

 build high in the center, sloping both ways to carry off 

 the water. The speaker said the best roads of modern 

 times are those of France. They are well taken care of, 

 the law requiring heavy wagons to have a six-inch tire 

 and the hinder wheels running outside the track made by 

 the forward wheels, so that a two foot strip of the road is 

 rolled everv time the wagon passes over it instead of being 

 cut up by the narrow tires as is the case in our neighbor- 

 hood. The Massachusetts highways are being constructed 

 after the methods of Telford, an Englishman, and Mac- 

 adam, a Scotchman, the former but little known, while 

 macadamized roads are known everywhere. Telford used 

 a substratum of broken stones of about four inches in di- 

 ameter, while Macadam used only a two and a half inch 

 diameter. A bed of six or eight inches of rock was laid 

 after the ground had been prepared, then smaller stone 

 with a layer almost like dust on top, which, when wet, 

 cemented the whole into a compact bod} r , being rolled by 

 a steam roller weighing some ten or twelve tons. $500,000 

 are being expended by the State each year and bonds 

 issued in payment. The speaker said issuing bonds has 

 been stigmatized as feloniously putting the hand into the 

 pocket of posterity, but that the State is building these 

 roads to last fifty years or more so that posterity will have 

 something for its money. 



Monday Evening, Jan. 31, 1898. — The third lecture 

 in the course was given this evening in Academy Hall by 

 Miss Helen A. Brooks, a native of Salem, assisted by 

 Miss Edith E. Tprrey of the King's Chapel Choir, Boston. 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XXX 9 



