430 OUR COMMON ROADS — MURPHY. 
is to be hoped that it will be shewn this evening that the subject 
of this paper is one which, however it has been neglected in our 
Province, offers a wide and promising field for the skill of those 
who may be intrusted with the control and maintenance of the 
highways of this country, and that it is brought before you in 
such manner as may be acceptable to the President and members 
of this Society. 
Now, the author holds that there is just as much science and 
engineering skill required in the practice of road-making as there 
is in any one of the branches of the engineering profession with 
which he is acquainted. He is not, however, to be understood to 
say that the practice of road-making is an exclusive one. On 
the contrary, there is room for all. There is too often a mutual 
distrust between scientific and practical men, and though it is 
year by year decreasing as progress and civilization increase, it 
still exists, and is largely to be ascribed to the misinterpretation 
of a term, which term is in this case “science.” What, then, - 
does the term science actually signify ? Simply: 
A knowledge of facts the result of observation; or 
A knowledge of laws obtained by reasoning on combined facts. 
If we add a power and a habit of reflection, that may help us 
in extending or developing the law itself beyond the limits of the 
observed facts, and enable us to advance into new regions of 
inquiry, we may be able to foretell facts which are at the time 
beyond the range of our practical experience. 
We have the rules and laws that govern road-making in Great 
Britain, as practised by McAdam, Telford and Parnell, as well as 
those of more modern experience, to which we shall refer further 
on, and we doubt much if any of these systems would be judi- 
cious to adopt in our climate. We must, therefore, adapt our- 
selves to the science, the ordinary experience, of our daily life, 
and reduce them to rules of precision. We want a proper method 
of locating country roads with due regard to grades, tractive force 
and economy of construction. This is science, and may be made 
familiar to any intelligent non-professional reader. We want a 
better knowledge with respect to the selection of such materials 
