336 The Right Hon. Sir John H. A. Mnrdonald [Fe)). 16, 



prepared consisted not of stones of the same size and weight, and 

 this state of things brings about very damaging results. Here is a 

 stone of the Macadam gauge, and here are stones that I have taken 

 out of road metal laid down for use, or found pushed out of the road 

 by the traffic. The Macadam stone, as specified by him, was to be 

 only six ounces in weight. I have here stones of larger size which 

 weigh a pound and even more. TiCt me illustrate to you the evil effects 

 of the use of large stones. I have laid in this box as near a repre- 

 sentation of a macadam road as I can, with several stones on the top 

 layer of different sizes. To each of them I have attached a strip of 

 bamboo, with a coloured disc on the outer end. I now press down on 

 the Macadam gauge stone, putting the pressure over one-half of the 

 width. I press at the same distance in from the end of each of the 

 others, and you see how the larger stones are tilted up free of the 

 surface, being loosened out of the binding. The same thing happens 

 when the edge of a horse's shoe or the angle of a wheel tyre presses 

 near the end of a large stone, and thus the surface of the road is 

 broken up. A hole is left in which water can lodge and work its 

 way down with fatal result. The effect is even worse if large rounded 

 stones are used. Here are two stones which I found in the middle 

 of a road — where I would rather not disclose, as I do not wish to be 

 personal. Suffice it to say that it was not fifty miles from London. 

 Such stones cannot stay in the surface of a road. They must roll 

 loose and leave a hole, to be widened and deepened, and filled with 

 water when rain falls. 



Such was the state of matters on the main roads until within a 

 few years of the present century, and it is still the same in many 

 parts of the country. Another evil has come in, that on many roads 

 it has been the practice to pile stones on the centre of the way, 

 without making such arrangements as will keep the camber or curve 

 of the road low. The result is that drivers, to escape the extra strain 

 on their horses by driving along the side of a slope, and to avoid 

 slipping down to the gutter when the road is greasy, keep on 

 the very centre of the road, on which two ruts are soon formed 

 which gradually get deeper, and in which water lodges, with 

 most disastrous effect, the water being splashed out by the wheel, 

 and mud being forced up and out by the blow struck when the tyre 

 goes down into the hollows formed. (Two diagrams shown.) 



All this being so, the greatly increased traffic, and the increased 

 speed of passage, consequent on the development of mechanical car- 

 riages, have caused much attention to be directed to road construction. 



