84. Notes and Sketches. 



carried on by means of "ten or twelve pack horses 

 going and returning once a week," as we are told was 

 the case, so late as about 1760 ! 



It was not till 1810 that that " most eminent of road 

 surveyors," Mr. Loudon Macadam, succeeded in getting 

 public attention called to his improved system of road- 

 making, by first securing the support of the Board of 

 Agriculture through its President, Sir John Sinclair, 

 and in virtue of that support obtaining the approval of 

 a Parliamentary committee. And it was several years 

 after till macadamised roads came into anything like 

 general use. Before Macadam there was General 

 Wade ; but apart from the military roads constructed 

 under his direction, and up to fully the date when these 

 were " made," " the communication by land" in Scot- 

 land was " along paths which necessity had traced out, 

 that were marked only by the footsteps of the beasts 

 that travelled along them, unless it was in a few bad 

 passes through bogs that could not be avoided, where a 

 rough and narrow causeway of stones badly laid 

 together afforded at least a solid footing to the beasts, 

 though a very disagreeable and dangerous path to those 

 who were obliged to use it." Such is the description 

 of a writer, speaking of what came almost within his 

 own personal recollection. 



In the county of Aberdeen, Sir Archibald Grant of 

 Monymusk, who began his operations as an agricultural 

 improver about 1716, was among the first to move on 

 the subject of road-making, as of many other improve- 

 ments. In describing the condition of his paternal 

 estate at the date mentioned, he says : " At that time 

 there was not one acre upon the whole esteat enclosed, 

 nor any timber upon it, but a few elm, cycamore, and 

 ash about a small kitchen garden adjoining to the house, 

 and some straggling trees at some of the farm yards, 

 with a small cops wood, not inclosed and dwarfish and 

 broused by sheep and cattle. All the farms ill-disposed 

 and mixed,, different persons having alternated ridges, 



