CIIAI-. V. .InllX MF/IVALF. IK >AI > MAKER. 229 



way. When the first load was brought and laid on, and 

 the horses reached the firm ground again in safety, loud 

 cheers were set up by the persons who had assembled 

 in the expectation of seeing both horses and waggons 

 disappear in the bog. The whole length was finished 

 in like manner, and it proved one of the best, and even 

 the driest, parts of the road, standing in very little need 

 of repair for nearly twelve years after its construction. 

 The plan adopted by Metcalf, we need scarcely point 

 out, was precisely similar to that afterwards adopted by 

 George Stephenson, under like circumstances, when 

 constructing the railway across Chat Moss. It consisted 

 simply in a large extension of the bearing surface, 

 by which, in fact, the road was made to float upon 

 the surface of the bog ; and the ingenuity of the expe- 

 dient proved the practical shrewdness and mother-wit 

 of the blind Metcalf, as it afterwards illustrated the 

 promptitude as well as skill of the clear-sighted George 

 Stephenson. 



Metcalf was upwards of seventy years old before he 

 left off road-making. He was still hale and hearty, 

 wonderfully active for so old a man, and always full of 

 enterprise. Occupation was absolutely necessary for 

 his comfort, and even to the last day of his life he could 

 not bear to be idle. Whilst engaged in road-making in 

 Cheshire, he brought his wife to Stockport for a time, and 

 there she died, after thirty-nine years of happy married 

 life. One of Metcalf's daughters became married to a 

 person engaged in the cotton business at Stockport, and, 

 as that trade was then very brisk, Metcalf himself com- 

 menced it in a small way. He began with six spinning- 

 jennies and a carding-engine, to which he afterwards 

 added looms for weaving calicoes, jeans, and velveteens. 

 But trade was fickle, and finding that he could not sell 

 his yarns except at a loss, he made over his jennies 

 to his son-in-law, and again went on with his road- 

 making. The last line which he constructed was one of 



