374 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.-—1912. 
of his troops, constructed roads over long stretches of country, which 
do credit to this day to the skill of his engineers. They were, in fact, 
streets, well-bottomed, well-laid, well-drained, and well-paved. The 
other case of real road-making in Scotland occurred in the time when 
the difficult work of finally quelling the resistance of the supporters 
of the Stuart dynasty in the Highlands was being carried on by a 
General who discerned the advantages to his work of good roads for 
moving his troops and their munitions of war. So valuable was the 
work he had done to the good of the country that in later years an 
obelisk was erected in Inverness-shire in his honour, on which was 
carved as good a bull as ever was perpetrated in Ireland. It read 
thus :— 
If you had seen this road before it was made 
You would hold up both hands and bless General Wade. 
With the above exception the roads were in early times made by the 
traffic. Those on foot wore down a path by pressure of the feet. Those 
on horseback followed in the same tortuous line, avoiding obstacles. 
No laws were passed till within the last two centuries to cause road 
construction, with one exception, and that was an ancient statute which 
ordained that :— 
‘Where any highway is worn deep and incommodious another 
shall be laid out alongside,’ which meant not that a road should be 
really made, but only that large stones and bushes should be cleared 
away at the side of the road to open a new track. The course of the 
road was made more tortuous than before, and this accounts for many 
of the curious windings of our roads even at this day. 
The roads being mere tracks their condition at all times was dreadful. 
Queen Elizabeth, after taking her first drive in a regal coach obtained 
for her in France, complained to the French Ambassador that ‘ her 
body was full of aches and pains for days’ after a two-hours’ ride, in 
which probably she traversed about five miles. Much later things were 
no better. Young, a great traveller, writing in 1770, speaking of the 
North road, tells of ‘ ruts which measured four feet deep and floating in 
mud. ‘The only mending it receives is the tumbling in of some loose 
stones . . . jolting a carriage most abominably.’ So frightful was 
the state of things that in seventy years in the eighteenth century 
530 Acts of Parliament were passed, ordering the citizens to do work 
on the roads, they being required to give six days’ labour annually or to 
pay a commutation sum of money. But the work was done on no 
system and in great degree scamped, and the commutation money 
squandered and too often pilfered. It may give an idea of the state of 
things to quote what Sir Henry Verney said in the House of 
Commons: ‘ If a man were to propose to convey us regularly in coaches 
to Edinburgh in seven days should we not vote him to Bedlam?’ 
Practical science was applied for the first time to the road when 
Macadam and Telford came upon the scene. As Macadam said before 
a Committee of the House of Commons, the state of things which 
existed was chaotic, the road commissioners being appointed in absurd 
numbers for small areas—‘ thus a business of art and science is com- 
