92 MECHANICS. 



Hard and durable roads are made on the plan of 

 Telford. Their foundation is rounded stones^ placed 

 upright, with the smaller or sharp ends upward. The 

 smaller stones are placed near the sides, and the larger 

 at the centre, thus giving to the road a convex form. 

 The spaces are then filled in with small broken stone, 

 and the whole covered with the same material or with 

 gravel. The pressure of wagons crowds it compactly 

 between the stones, and forms a very hard mass. 



IMPORTANCE OF GOOD ROADS. 



The principles of road-making should be better un- 

 derstood by the community at large. Farmers are 

 deeply interested in good roads. Nearness to market, 

 and facilities for all other kinds of commmiication, are 

 worth a great deal, often materially affecting the price 

 of land and its products. The difference between trav- 

 elmg ten miles through deep mud, at two miles per 

 hour, with half a load, and traveling ten miles over a 

 fuie road, at five miles per hour, with a fuU load, should 

 not be forgotten. 



" In the absence of such facilities," says Gillespie, 

 " the richest productions of nature waste on the spot 

 of their growth. The luxuriant crops of our Western 

 prairies are sometimes left to decay on the ground, be- 

 cause there are no rapid and easy means of conveying 

 them to market. The rich mines in the northern part 

 of the State of New York are comparatively valueless, 

 because the roads among the mountams are so few 

 and so bad, that the expense of the transportation of 

 the metal would exceed its value. So, too, in Spain 

 it has been known, after a succession of abundant har- 



