1823.] Mr. Hutchinson on the permanent Improvement of Roads. 
pressed under water, or she turn bot- 
tom up, it matters not, for she will 
refit as olten without any assistance ; 
the man at the helm shall be still se- 
cure; and I repeat again, that it may 
be as useful in the hazardous enter- 
prise of the pilot, or the fishing-boat, 
as the life-preserver ; and particularly 
adapted to attend a ship in rough 
weather, where a common boat would 
be in a perilous situation. 
I am informed that the Deal boats, 
‘in cases of necessity, venture out 
through the breakers on a lee-shore 
to a ship in distress, and get over the 
surf without being swamped; but it 
sometimes happens that the boats fill, 
and the men are drowned, or in very 
great danger. An instance of this 
nature lately happened on the Kent 
or Surrey coast. Nowif the Deal boat 
can thus work off the shore with dan- 
ger, this boat can equally well work 
off withoui,—for it shall be the same 
altered boat, the same rigging, and the 
same men. 
The model will prove every thing 
which I have said: I have no wish to 
keep any thing a secret, but to make 
every thing as speedily public as pos- 
sible. I only desire to be indemnified 
in offering to the public a complete 
specimen of what I have proposed, 
which I am _told,for a boat of eighteen 
feet keel, would not exceed 100/. a 
matter of no great importance where 
. the object is human life. 
I am not so presumptuous as to say, 
that the plan is infallible, or that there 
is no danger in any situation, or under 
any circumstances; but I see none, 
unless it be coming in contact with 
rocks; and I do mean to say, and am 
ready to prove, that the plan is more 
safe by 10,000 degrees than the usual 
modes of putting to sea, either by the 
life, the fishing, the pilot, or any other 
boat now in use. If ten lives only 
are saved in a year, it is a consl- 
deration. 
IT have shown this model only to one 
experienced and respectable ship- 
builder, who remarked that it cer- 
tainly was calculated to answer every 
thing which I had said of it; and he 
was surprised that no one had ever 
suggested it before. 
if what I have said is thought wor- 
thy the attention of those whom it 
mostly concerns, the writer may soon 
be found out by the initials of 
A, B. €, 
499 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
OBSERVATIONS on the EVILS: of the 
PRESENT SYSTEM on which the WHEELS 
and AXLES of CARRIAGES are CON- 
STRUCTED; shewing that, by their 
RUINOUS EFFECTS, every attempt to 
IMPROVE the ROADS is rendered PAR- 
TIALLY NUGATORY. 
Y the General Turnpike or High- 
way Act, passed many years ago, 
it was enacted, that the wheels of car- 
riages should run a certain distance 
apart from each other, and all car- 
riages now in use (excepting drays in 
the metropolis, and a few others,) are 
regulated on that principle. This 
equality of widths on the ground is 
productive of incalculable mischief by 
the constant formation of ruts and 
quarters; and, so long as that system 
is adhered to, no road whatever, or 
however formed, can be exempt from 
these consequences, and more espe- 
cially those on which the uniform line 
of heayy carriages is unbroken by 
lighter travelling. Although the Act 
above mentioned has been repealed 
some time, the influence of established 
customs, aided by the powerful sway 
of prejudice, still leads the public to 
preserve the same distance of wheels 
from each other in all carriages; and, 
until alaw be made to compel a di- 
versity of widths in the wheels on the 
ground, we shall always have to con- 
tend with slices, quarters, and fur- 
rows,—the effect of which both man 
and horse have cause to dread. Nay, 
were roads formed with iron, even 
then they would not be entirely 
exempt from quarters and furrows. 
This, though not obvious to common 
observers, 1s yet sufficiently evident to 
all who have studied the subject. 
The consequences of a law pre- 
scribing diversity of widths, as afore- 
mentioned, would be—good roads 
every where, and the certain saving to 
the whole community of many hun- 
dred thousand pounds annually, all 
which may be accomplished without 
producing the least inconvenience to 
any individual, or altering the widths 
of coach or waggon bodies in any way 
whatever. 
I am so thoroughly convinced of the 
beneficial effects of the adoption of 
the alterations which I have suggest- 
ed, that if carriages so constructed 
were used three months only, on a 
busy road now regularly sliced and 
quartered, I haye no doubt that road 
would 
