220 
paving, the ground should be previously 
rammed as hard as may be before the 
stones are placed. _ But Mr. S. should 
also have advised, that paving stones be 
placed in as close contact as possible, 
For it is well known that the admission 
of water between the stones is one of 
the principal causes of their becoming 
loosened almost immediately the pave- 
ment becomes deluged by rain. 
This must be so obvious as scarcely 
to require explanation ; for if any por- 
tion ofthe sand used by paviours be so- 
luble in water (and, from the rubbish 
employed frequently for this purpose, 
at least one-half of it must be soluble), 
it will evidently be washed out from the 
interstices of the pavement, leaving the 
stone in a bed of quagmire. 
It should also be observed, that the 
system on which these job-contracts are 
taken—that of paving so many square 
feet at a given price—offers a direct 
temptation to the paviour to substitute 
the cheapest materials for the best, 
without any regard to the accommoda- 
tion of the public, or the durability of » 
the work : indeed, this interest is pro- 
moted by the frequency of the neces- 
sary repairs; consequently he takes care, 
like the leasehold builder, not to render 
his work too durable. And as rubbish, 
brick-dust, sand, &c. are far cheaper ma- 
terials than granite paving-stone, the less 
of the latter substance in every hundred 
feet of pavement the better. There is 
an immediate saving of twenty or thirty 
per cent., and provision made for ano- 
ther job the ensuing year, instead of 
waiting three or four years for “ a con- 
summation so devoutly to be wished !” 
To be serious. The scandaloss man- 
ner in which these tradesmen execute 
their contracts,’ though notorious to 
every observer in the metropolis, has 
been permitted from year to year, for 
some reason or other, to the entire dis- 
grace of the heads of parishes and the 
local police. However, like most other 
evils, this great nuisance to the inhabi- 
tants (especially to the proprietors of 
horses and vehicles of any kind) is ra- 
pidly abating; not in consequence of the 
liberality or vigilance of the managing 
parties of districts, but in consequence 
of the talents and perseverance of an en- 
terprizing North Briton ! 
It is notorious that, even at the pre- 
sent day, when experience has demon- 
strated, as clearly as any proposition in 
Euclid, that a good, firm, hard road- 
way may be advantageously made in 
Macadamizing versus’ Street-paving. 
[Ocrehy 
every tolerably wide street, that doubts 
and queries are continually started as to 
its eligibility! The plan of road-making 
adopted Mr. McAdam is far from being 
any visionary scheme,and is intelligible to 
every man of the most ordinary capacity,’ 
who does not wilfully shut his eyes. 
The principle is simply this: to have 
the substratum made very nearly level, 
or just sufficient for the water to drain 
off; to have the road-material of the 
hardest stones which can be procured ; 
to break such stones down to one uniform 
size, in order that no unequal interstices 
may be left between them when em- 
bedded together; and to exclude the 
use of rounded gravel, and the loam, 
sand, or clay with which they are usually 
combined. The angular fragments of the 
broken stones serve to keep them firm 
in their place, whilst the pulverized mat- 
ter from the friction on the surface 
fills up the interstices with the best kind 
of cement. For want of these angles, it 
must be obvious that the rounded or 
diluvial gravel, usually dug from gravel- 
pits, cannot bind firm, but when exposed 
to wet, acting on the loam, &c. will in- 
variably form a loose or shifting mass, 
which must be continually liable to fall 
into holes or inequalities, according to 
the hardness of the substratum on which 
it rests. _ 
What has been called McAdam’s 
system (perhaps with some justice, as 
a compliment to his perseverance in 
following it up in defiance of all the in- 
terested opposition he has experienced), 
is in reality nothing more than that of 
preventing water from gaiming access to 
the materials of the road, and using 
materials of the very best kind, instead 
of the compost of sand, clay, and chalk, 
called road-gravel; or of substituting 
the softer varieties of limestone or 
sand-stone. 
Itis, I believe, one of the maxims of 
Mr. McAdam to recommend the pur- 
chase of the best material, at almost 
any price, as a measure of ultimate 
economy. It is however very easy to 
perceive, that if any gentleman who hap- 
pens to have a bed of inferior gravel on 
his estate, also happens to be a trustee 
or commissioner of turnpikes, that the 
virtue of such commission would pro- 
bably transmute the gravel (containing 
thirty or forty per cent. of loam) into‘a 
better material for road-making than 
hard limestone, iron sandstone, or gra- 
nite dug from a quarry out of the pale 
of such commission. 
Another 
