40 
Rural Roads. 
work. It should also be noted that in America these asphaltic 
pavements are sometimes formed with blocks instead of with 
sheets of asphalt laid in situ. The great feature of this 
American asphalt work is the comparative freedom from 
slipperiness that is said to result from the admixture of sharp 
sand, and this freedom is really the only quality in which 
asphaltic pavements as hitherto constructed in Europe are 
seriously deficient. Mr. E. North, C.E., states that in New 
York traffic has abandoned 93rd Street, which has a gradient 
of 1 in 20 and is paved with granite, for 94th Street, which is 
paved with asphalt and has a gradient of 1 in 17. 
This system is now said to be making headway in England, 
though early experiments with it failed, probably on account 
of the want of the detailed care so necessary but hard to 
secure in connection with roadmaking. The writer was lately 
struck by the good appearance of some asphaltic footways 
in the city of Waterford, and spoke about them to the city 
engineer. He stated that they were made by an old foreman, 
who died some years ago, and that the loss of this man, whose 
heart was thoroughly in his work though he was always as black 
as the pitch he dealt with, had made it impossible to secure work 
of the same kind of equal quality and durability. The personal 
equation is nowhere of more importance than in connection 
with road work. The man is always of as much importance 
as the method. 
The writer would here draw attention to the fact that any 
person can use upon the public highways vehicles constructed 
in the most ramshackle manner, which, as regards noise, are 
instruments of torture to other people, and that there is now 
no limitation in the statutes as to the minimum width of tyres 
of cart wheels. The width of tyres can be regulated in England 
and Wales by bye-laws under the Highways and Locomotives 
Act, 1878, and in Scotland under the Roads and Bridges Act, 
1878, but there is no power to make such bye-laws in Ireland. 
If all vehicles were constructed in a rational manner, with 
springs and simple arrangements to keep down jar and clatter 
between parts of the vehicle, it might then be possible, even 
without a great improvement in our roadways, to reduce the noise 
of traffic very considerably ; and if farmers and carters were 
constrained to use wheels with a width of tyre of about four 
inches, it would be much easier to keep macadam surfaces 
in good order. The extra cost of such wheels would be about 
30s. a pair at most. Great public benefit would result if it 
were enacted that by, say, January 1, 1910, all carts with the 
present knife-like wheel edges should be illegal throughout 
the kingdom, and, further, that all vehicles intended for use in 
towns should be reasonably constructed with a view to save 
