Remarks on the Present System of Road Making: With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience, With a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of Making, Repairing, and Preserving Roads, and Defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Seventh Edition, Carefully Revised, With an Appendix, and Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, June 1823, with Extracts from the EvidenceMcAdam, John Loudon
History
Remarks on the Present System of Road Making: With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience, With a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of Making, Repairing, and Preserving Roads, and Defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Seventh Edition, Carefully Revised, With an Appendix, and Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, June 1823, with Extracts from the Evidence
McAdam, John Loudon
Macadam roads; Roads -- Great Britain
Is it your opinion, that by proper regulations a sufficient supply of
those materials to which you have alluded, could be procured for the
whole of the roads in the neighbourhood of London?—Yes, I think there
might; because a steady and constant demand, even at a low price, would
insure importation, and this demand can only be steady if the roads
round London were consolidated under one set of commissioners acting for
the whole, and having depôts into which they could receive materials at
all times at a fixed price, to be distributed wherever wanted, by an
assurance of a ready purchaser; vessels coming in ballast, or not fully
loaded, from any place where good road materials were to be procured,
would be induced to take on board sufficient to make up their loading;
contracts could also be made for flint by the various canals, and upon
terms more moderate than the present price of gravel; I am unable to lay
before the Committee a detailed plan for supplying the London roads with
good and cheap materials, which requires a considerable time and
attention in the inquiry.
Is there any other information connected with the improvement of the
roads in the neighbourhood of London, which you think you could give to
the Committee?—I am quite satisfied that the materials to be imported
into London would make good roads, because I made two pieces of very
excellent road with those materials at the two bridges, without making
use of any gravel of the country.
At what time was this done?—The pieces of road were made in August and
September 1817.
What was the extent?—There were about 200 yards of the one, and about
180 yards of the other; one of them joins the iron pavement at the foot
of Blackfriars bridge; and the other joins the Marsh-gate turnpike, and
goes to the Asylum; those roads were made with river-gravel and pebbles
from the coast.
From whence did you get the river-gravel?—It was purchased from the
steam-engines that raise it in the river.
Did you lift the old road?—I took up all the stones that were in them
that were good for any thing, the flints and other stones, and then made
use of a considerable quantity of additional materials to make the
surface of the road afterwards.
Was the expense considerable?—There was no account kept of the expense
of the experiment at Westminster bridge, because the commissioners
wished me to employ a number of paupers and persons that had been on the
road before, without discharging them, who were very indifferent hands;
and they also wished that the road should be very considerably above the
level than I thought necessary, and that brought much more materials
than otherwise need have been put on; but the Blackfriars bridge
experiment cost about seven-pence halfpenny per square yard; there was a
very correct account kept of it, including the price of materials and
labour, and every thing.
Could you state what that would amount to for a mile?—That would depend
upon the breadth of the road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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