52 The Viagraph. 



the remarks of Professor Dougan, and desired to thank him, as 

 also Mr. Horner, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Cowan, and Professor 

 FitzGerald, for the approval they had expressed of the subject 

 of the paper. He was pleased to hear Mr. Kelly confirming his 

 views regarding road metal, and he felt sure they were all 

 greatly indebted to Mr. Cowan for his very full and clear 

 reference to the road question generally. Mr. Cowan was, no 

 doubt, quite right in advising more effective supervision. 

 Since, in the paper, a rather pointed comparison had been made 

 between the Lisburn Road and the Prescot Road showing that 

 while alike in size, importance, amount of traffic, and subsoil, 

 they were very different in quahty of surface, attention 

 should be drawn to another point of difference — viz., cost of 

 repairs. It was stated on the best authority that the Lisburn 

 Road (buying its metal at, say 4s per ton) cost ^220 per mile 

 per annum, while the Prescot Road (with metal at 10s to 12s 

 per ton) costs ^100 only. Truly a bad road was dearer than 

 a good one. It might be suggested that the difference in these 

 items, if capitalized, would put the Lisburn Road in a good 

 condition to start with. In reference to the difference in 

 width of Irish cart wheel tyres as compared with English, it 

 should be pointed out that the loads commonly carted here are 

 much less than in England. The load per inch width of tyre 

 was therefore perhaps not very different. While agreeing with 

 the President as to the discomfort of the noise from our square 

 setts, Mr. Brown thought one must admit that the smallness 

 of the tractive force required on square setts is very advan- 

 tageous. He observed this markedly when driving a motor 

 car over them. 



