clean flint of the best kind; the coast of Essex, Kent, and Sussex, can furnish a supply to any extent of beach pebbles, one of the best road materials in the kingdom. Granite chippings might be obtained occasionally from Cornwall, Guernsey and Scotland, as ballast; two pieces of road were made with these materials near London, without any mixture of land gravel, at Blackfriars Bridge and Westminster Bridge. What are the impediments which, in your opinion, prevent the commissioners of the roads near London from availing themselves of those advantages?—The very small trusts into which the roads in the immediate vicinity of London are divided, is the principal cause; this renders it impossible for commissioners to enter upon the plan of procuring materials upon an extended scale, and they cannot be obtained with any regard to economy, except in quantity, with a view to a supply for the whole roads, proceeding from the stones of London to a certain distance. There are also some impediments arising from particular laws, regulations and customs, which can only be removed by parliament. The Ballast Act gives a right of pre-emption to the Trinity House of all stone and other materials brought as ballast into the Thames. The coasting duty on stone operates as a prohibition to the importation of stone as merchandize; the amount of canal duties payable on merchandize prevents the carriage of road materials on all inland navigations; manure so transported has been protected in most Canal Acts, but road materials have not been considered. Should parliament be pleased to remove these difficulties, the London roads may be rendered independent of the gravel of the country, by a moderate exertion of statistical and mercantile information on the part of the officers employed by the commissioners. If the Committee understand you right, you give a decided preference to materials thus imported, over the gravel to be found in the neighbourhood of London?—I do.