His plan was this. He ordered heather and ling to be pulled from the adjacent ground, and after binding it together in little round bundles, which could be grasped with the hand, these bundles were placed close together in rows in the direction of the line of road, after which other similar bundles were placed transversely over them; and when all had been pressed well down, stone and gravel were led on in broad-wheeled waggons, and spread over the bundles, so as to make a firm and level way. When the first load was brought and laid on, and the horses reached the firm ground again in safety, loud cheers were set up by the persons who had assembled in the expectation of seeing both horses and waggons disappear in the bog. The whole length was finished in like manner, and it proved one of the best, and even the driest, parts of the road, standing in very little need of repair for nearly twelve years after its construction. The plan adopted by Metcalf, we need scarcely point out, was precisely similar to that afterwards adopted by George Stephenson, under like circumstances, when constructing the railway across Chat Moss. It consisted simply in a large extension of the bearing surface, by which, in fact, the road was made to float upon the surface of the bog; and the ingenuity of the expedient proved the practical shrewdness and mother-wit of the blind Metcalf, as it afterwards illustrated the promptitude as well as skill of the clear-sighted George Stephenson. Metcalf was upwards of seventy years old before he left off road-making. He was still hale and hearty, wonderfully active for so old a man, and always full of enterprise. Occupation was absolutely necessary for his comfort, and even to the last day of his life he could not bear to be idle. While engaged on road-making in Cheshire, he brought his wife to Stockport for a time, and there she died, after thirty-nine years of happy married life. One of Metcalf's daughters became married to a person engaged in the cotton business at Stockport, and, as that trade was then very brisk, Metcalf himself commenced it in a small way. He began with six spinning-jennies and a carding-engine, to which he afterwards added looms for weaving calicoes, jeans, and velveteens. But trade was fickle, and finding that he could not sell his yarns except at a loss, he made over his jennies to his son-in-law, and again went on with his road-making. The last line which he constructed was one of the most difficult he had everundertaken,-- that between Haslingden and Accrington, with a branch road to Bury. Numerous canals being under construction at the same time, employment was abundant and wages rose, so that though he honourably fulfilled his contract, and was paid for it the sum of 3500L., he found himself a loser of exactly 40L. after two years' labour and anxiety. He completed the road in 1792, when he was seventy-five years of age, after which he retired to his farm at Spofforth, near Wetherby,