CHARLES CORNER-COUNTY ROADS. 
21 
fact that it is easier to walk up a gravel roof at, say, an angle of 40 de¬ 
grees, than a tin one of the same inclination. 
If we say that on a given road on a level a horse can move a total load 
of 3 tons, 
Then on a rise of one per cent he can pull only 2.70 tons. 
On a rise of two per cent he can pull only 2.40 tons. 
On a rise of three per cent he can pull only 1.80 tons. 
On a rise of four per cent he can pull onty 1.50 tons. 
On a rise of ten per cent he can pull only .75 of a ton. 
These figures are worth considering in laying out a road, and particu¬ 
larly so at river crossings. 
The eminent authority, Gen. Roy Stone, writes as follows on this sub¬ 
ject, speaking of New Jersey: 
“ Your roads were laid out as is the custom in this country, without 
any attention to the general topography, and generally by following the 
settlers’ paths from cabin to cabin or by running along their farm lines, 
regardless of grades or direction, and most of them still remain where 
they were laid and where untold labor has been wasted in trying to im¬ 
prove them. It would have been worth millions to you to have had 
them systematically and skillfully laid out in the beginning." 
And Mr. Shaler says: 
“ The difference between well aligned ways and those which are placed 
haphazard in the country is, as far as the commercial interests of the 
people are concerned, of very great importance. In several counties 
well known to me in this country, I am satisfied that the difference which 
could have been effected by the exercise of a little skill would have 
amounted in the tax upon the community to a saving of many thousand 
dollars per annum." 
The natural condition of our present roads in the various soils is sim¬ 
ply this: 
In dry weather the clay and black land roads are tolerable. 
In wet weather they are impassable. 
In dry weather our sandy roads are abominable. 
In wet weather they become serviceable enough. 
In parts of the State, notably in the west, are limestone and other rock 
surfaced roads which make good traveling in level places all the year 
round. In other districts, and I remember many such in the “ post oaks," 
is a mixture of sand and gravel that forms excellent natural roads. Upon 
the black lands and the sandy loams, on the red loams and the sandy 
lands we have to graft a new surface and maintain it in condition. Let 
us definitely throw aside plank roads, straw roads, “excelsior" roads, 
and similar contrivances as among the things that perish. Some form of 
macadam is what we want, and as this is costly, we must make up our 
