Roads . 
285 
Washington , October 31, 1813, 
The Honorable Albert Gallatin, 
Secretary of the Treasury of the U. S, 
Sir, 
AGREEABLY to my promise, I submit to you such remarks 
as occur to me on the perusal of the contracts of Messrs. Cochran, 
M‘Kinley, and Randal, for making the United States’ road from 
Cumberland towards Brownsville. 
These contracts require the following description of a road. 
1 . The road is to be levelled from side to side to the width of 
thirty feet. 
2. In the centre of these thirty feet, a pavement (as it is now 
the mode to call it) of twenty feet is to be laid in two strata : the 
first to consist of stones, which will pass through a ring 7 inches 
in diameter ; the second of stones that will pass through a 3 inch 
ring. The pavement is to be 20 feet wide. 
3. This pavement is to be laid 6 or 9 inches higher in the cen~ 
tre than on the edges, and the earth is to be raised up to the edges 
to prevent the stones from separating, or, in the technical phrase, 
it is to be shouldered. 
4. There is to be a ditch on the upper side of the road and con- 
tiguous to the pavement, that is, upon the shoulder, or, at most, 
but a short distance from it. 
I make no remark on the stipulated slopes, as some alteration 
has been admitted respecting them. 
I will now, in the order in which I have set them down, give 
you my opinion on each of these points of construction. 
1. As the general course of the road, excepting where it cross- 
es a valley, is carried along the side of the mountains, the general 
section will appear as in the plate. 
To the width of the road there can be no objection (A),* nor 
2. To the width of the pavement. But to the construction in 
every other point, I shall take the liberty of offering such objec- 
tions as both theory and experience have suggested, and as in a 
great many instances have been found solid in my own profession- 
al practice. 
The idea of covering a road with stones of different sizes has, 
I believe, arisen originally in the expectation, that the soft clay or 
earth, which in most instances constitutes the natural soil, would 
be less easily penetrated by large, (especially by fiat stones) laid 
*■ See Appendix. 
