No. 4.] COUNTRY ROADS. 241 



such cases ; but all is well that ends well. The good 

 road-mender must have a place for and be ready for any- 

 thing. He is liable to be called to bury dead horses and 

 receive a delegation of village women at the same moment, 

 when highway, street and side-walk concerns become lively. 



We have run through the whole list of road-stuff, from 

 native brush, sands, earths, gravels, wood in various forms, 

 cobble stones and broken rock, furnace-slag, clinkers, and 

 a great variety of pavements to railway iron and steel, — all 

 good in their places, — yet never, as a whole people, thor- 

 oughly understanding any of them. We allow ourselves to 

 be rushed from one expense to another, as if road material 

 was a matter of fashion, like the shape of a hat or coat. 



The city engineering plan of piling each size of stone in 

 separate layers, is nothing but the old wood-chopper's trick 

 for making their cords bulky, and measure more by the air- 

 spaces in them. Stone crushers by the yard gain by measur- 

 ing their sizes separately. Laborers understand the trick. 

 If they wink at our cheating, we must wink at theirs. 

 When any engineer tells of these things, the rings maul him 

 to death, and nobody minds. Road-stone should be sold by 

 weight, or cubic measure, after it is well built, like brick or 

 stone wall. 



We can show visiting strangers some fine streets, while 

 they are new and fresh from the mud-starch and ironing of 

 the steam roller. But why don't they wear longer ? What 

 makes these depressions after a few months or years? 

 Why do they shake us so? 



The trouble comes from "porous" road making. Our 

 honeycomb arrangement of stone and air has caved in. Our 

 road-cake has " fallen from the crust." Clay or street filth 

 has gushed in among the rounded stone. The skim-coat 

 of screenings has blown into people's houses, or worked, as 

 greasy mud, into the leaching foundation. Rains, freezing 

 and thawing, the wringing pressure of wheels trembling 

 under heavy traffic, have destroyed the admired steam-roller 

 polish. Let us drive on some new street. Soon there will 

 be a call for " resurfacing," and so the bad work goes on. 



The evil of dust, with its discomfort, dirt, and possible 

 dissemination of diseases from streets, is greatly aggravated 



