and their Effects upon Roads. 103 
the Road; I have been surprised however to find Mr. W. unac- 
quainted with the circumstance, of the necessity of this latter 
improvement having been shown, in the Reports of the Com- 
mittees of the House of Commons on the subject of Roads and 
Carriages, because in the Ist Report ordered to be printed 11th 
May 1808, p. 114, Mr. C. W. Ward; in the 2d Report ordered 
to be printed 17th June 1808, p. 176, Mr. J. F. Erskine; and 
in the 3d Report, ordered to be printed 11th June 1809, p. 156, 
Mr. J. C. Hornblower, have distinctly done this; and so have 
many writers on the subject, particularly Mr. Robert Beatson 
and Mr. Richard Whitworth. 
In my Derbyshire Report, vol. iii. p. 242, I have related the- 
particulars, of an Act of Parliament obtained in 1808, for a Turn- 
pike Road between Ashover and Tupton, wherein (on the sug- 
gestion of Mr. Joseph Butler) the ‘l'olls on Carriages, have been 
apportioned, to several different breadths of their wheel-tracks, 
for inducing their owners to co-operate in the improvement in 
question. In p. 241 I have thus expressed myself; viz. “ It has 
occurred to'me, from a long and careful attention to Roads, in 
all situations, and 1 know numbers of intelligent Travellers and 
Road Surveyors, who have made the same observation, viz. that 
nothing is more essential to the goodness and permanence of a 
Road, than causing the wheels of carriages continually to change 
their places on the Road, by which alone, Ruts thereon can be 
avoided, and a smooth surface be obtained and preserved : this is 
remarkably exemplified, at the meetings or turnings of Roads, in 
most situations, notwithstanding the grinding action of the 
wheels thereon while turning (which action, Mr. Cummings and 
others have so greatly magnified, in the use of conical wheels,&c.) 
and on the slopes of hills of considerable steepness, where the 
horses, in order to ease the ascent or descent, endeavour to cross 
continually from one side of the Road to the other: as also in 
such parts of Roads, as are full of carriages, going different ways 
and paces, and are consequently obliged often to turn out, and 
change their tracks.” 
In the Work mentioned, I have endeavoured to enforce the 
great importance of obtaining hard Materials, for all Roads, 
which are subject to much wear, at almost any cost; and have 
pointed out the important aids which the art of Mineral Survey- 
ing may furnish, towards the discovery of such materials, in nu- 
merous districts, where now, soft and bad materials are used 
_on the great Roads. 
I am, &e. 
Howland-street, Feb. 1, 1819. Jouw Fargy Sen. 
