being ground down, which last mode occasions a waste of the material, and keeps the road unnecessarily heavy and loose. This observation applies to the repairing as well as the original making of roads, and the effect of this covering, or as it is called in the country, blinding the loose stones, is so evident, that I have often wondered to see so little attention paid to it. If the material is soft, as some limestone, this is less necessary, and the quantity ought never to be more than is just sufficient for the purpose I have described. In the original making or effectually repairing of a road, it is, I think, best that the whole of the proposed thickness be laid on at once, for the sake of the road as well as of the traveller; the materials of the road then form a more solid compact mass than when they are laid in thin strata, at different times, for the same reason that a deep arch of uniform materials is preferable to a number of separate rings. Though I state that an inclination in the longitudinal section of the road is always desirable for the purpose of clearing it of water, I am not of the opinion of those who recommend the road to be made and kept flat or level in its cross section. The variety of opinions and practice upon this point are very great; both extremes appear to me to be bad. A road much rounded is dangerous, particularly if the cross section approaches towards the segment of a circle, the slope in the case not being uniform, but increasing rapidly from the nature of the curve, as we depart from the middle or vertical line. The over rounding of roads is also injurious to them, by either confining the heavy carriages to one track in the crown of the road, or if they go upon the sides, by the great wear they produce, from their constant tendency to move down the inclined plane, owing to the angle which the surface of the road and the line of gravity of the load form with each other, and as this tendency is perpendicular to the line of draught, the labour of the horse and the wear of the carriage wheels, are both much increased by it. It is not altogether foreign to the subject to notice here, the error of forming the inclination of the roadway upon bridges, in the direction of their length, or across the river, from a section of a curve for the whole length, rather than from two lines joined together by a curve, as I have recommended for the cross section of a road. It is to this cause that the very heavy pull is owing, which must have been noticed in just getting upon a bridge, which decreases as we advance towards the middle of the bridge, and which would not have been so much felt, had it been spread regularly over the whole length (see No. 5, in the plan.)