In the formation of roads under your management, to what shape do you give the preference; I allude to the convex shape or the flat?—I consider a road should be as flat as possible with regard to allowing the water to run off at all, because a carriage ought to stand upright in travelling as much as possible. I have generally made roads three inches higher in the centre than I have at the sides, when they are 18 feet wide; if the road be smooth and well made, the water will run off very easily in such a slope. Do you consider a road so made will not be likely to wear hollow in the middle, so as to allow the water to stand, after it has been used for some time?—No; when a road is made flat, people will not follow the middle of it as they do when it is made extremely convex. Gentlemen will have observed that in roads very convex, travellers generally follow the track in the middle, which is the only place where a carriage can run upright, by which means three furrows are made by the horses and the wheels, and the water continually stands there: and I think that more water actually stands upon a very convex road than on one which is reasonably flat. What width would you in general recommend for laying materials on a turnpike road?—That must depend upon the situation. Near great towns roads of course ought to be wider than farther in the country. Roads near great towns ought not to be less than thirty or forty feet wide, but at a distance from great towns it would be a waste of land to make them so wide. You mean a breadth of thirty feet actual road?—Yes. The access to Bristol for a distance of about three miles, if we had room between the hedges, I would make about thirty feet wide. Between Bath and Bristol I should wish to see the road wide all the way, because it is only the distance of twelve miles between two large cities. In what way do you make the watercourses at the sides of the road; I ask that question, having observed the farmers, in exercising their power of cleaning out their ditches, dig them to such a depth as to render them dangerous to be passed at night?—I always wished the ditch to be so dug as that the materials of the road should be three or four inches above the level of the water in the ditch, and to that point we endeavour to bring the farmers, but they are very unwilling to clean the ditches at any time when called upon, and when they do it, if they find vegetable mould in any quantity at the bottom of the ditch, they will prosecute their inquiry much deeper than is useful, or proper for safety. Do you consider you have power by law, at present, for preventing that?—Yes; because the law says, they are to clean them out according to the directions of the surveyors.