viii PREFACE. 



mantle over our modern Babylon. Beyond the utmost fringe 

 of that mantle, the land may be bathed in bright winter sun- 

 shine, distant objects may appear unusually distinguishable, 

 but over the metropolis of the world — as some too patriotic 

 Englishmen have designated London — there is that over- 

 Avhelming and invulnerable darkness, which bears not the 

 slightest resemblance to the definition of a fog given by 

 lexicographers, since by them it is described as a dense 

 watery vapour exhaled from the earth. To attribute a 

 London fog to such a cause is a great mistake, since it is 

 undoubtedly owing to the existence of smoke held in sus- 

 pension, which neither falls nor rises, since there is not 

 sufficient movement in the atmosphere to waft it away. If 

 the difficulty of progression in the streets and on the roads 

 of the metropolis during a London fog paralyses traffic to 

 such an extent, how much more terrible would be the total 

 suspension of road traffic altogether ! 



Every one knows what it is when a road is taken up in 

 town or country, and wheeled vehicles have to make a 

 lengthened detour ; but this experience and that of a London 

 fog give us but a faint idea of what we should suffer if the 

 roads were reduced to the condition they were in two or three 

 centuries ago; but without imagining any such dire catas- 

 trophe as this, if fog can so materially interfere with the 

 traffic of the town, how much more would a snow-storm, not 

 confined to the town, but prevailing in all directions through- 

 out the country. As I have before said, persons who have 

 made light of the advantages arising from a perfect condition 

 of the highways and a perfect system of road communication 

 would then become fully sensible of their value. When roads 

 are blockaded and rendered impassable, it is as though we 

 were deprived of something which in a human being might 

 be compared to one of our senses, such as hearing, smelling, 

 tasting, or seeing ; immediately that a thing so essential to 

 our happiness, health, and comfort is denied to us, our ima- 

 gination raises it to such a pinnacle of usefulness that, in our 

 estimation, it becomes far more valuable than all the other 



