than with a common one; besides, he lifts them without taking up any earth with them.

Scrapers.

Scrapers are sometimes made of wood shod with iron, but those made of plate iron are preferable they should be six inches deep, and from fourteen to eighteen inches long in the blade, according to the materials of which the road is composed; the softer and more fluid the mud, the longer the scrapers should be; they turned a little round at the ends to prevent the mud from escaping. The best scrapers are made of old saw plates, stiffened on the back by a rib of wrought iron, or by riveting the plate to a board of elm, cut to the proper width and length and about half an inch thick.

Hedging Knives.

These instruments have been long used in Scotland, where they are called plashing tools: they are made of different sizes; that represented in Plate VII. fig. 14. is the most useful. When a labourer is a little practised in the use of them, he can trim a hedge as well as a gardener with a pair of shears, and much more expeditiously. They should be made sufficiently light to enable a man to use them with one

hand, and care should be taken by the maker, that they are properly balanced on the handle, otherwise a workman will not be able to wield them with proper effect; the great error in making these instruments in England, is that of making them too heavy, and curving the blade too much.

Working Levels.

Working levels are absolutely necessary in laying out new works, and in repairing old roads. These instruments are easily used by common workmen. One of the best kind of these levels is represented in Plate VII. fig. 8. in which ABC represents the level, upon the horizontal bar of which are placed four gauges, a, b, c, d, made to move perpendicularly to the line A C, in dove-tailed grooves cut in the horizontal bar. When any of these are adjusted, to project a proper depth below the line A C, it may be fixed by a thumb screw, which will retain the gauge in the desired position.

Fig. 9. shews a section of the horizontal bar drawn to a larger scale, as marked upon the edge of the gauge. This section is taken through the line ef of fig. 8. In this figure the position of the square iron bolt, or screw pin, is more plainly seen, and also the washer placed

under the thumb screw.

Three of these bolts pass through the horizontal bar, fig. 8. exactly three inches above the line A C; the other, seen at d, is only two inches above the same line.

Levels lor laying out slopes are best made of a bar of wood, three inches deep, one inch thick, and six feet long; on the centre near the middle of the rod, a triangular piece of wood of the same thickness is nailed; the sides of this triangular piece are so formed, that when the rod is placed upon a slope of one to two or one to three, a small pocket level placed on one side of the triangle will be horizontal, and the bubble will remain in the centre.

Ring Gauges.

Ring gauges for ascertaining the size of the broken stones are extremely useful. A ring of this description is represented in Plate VII. fig. 17.

CHAP. XII.

ROAD LEGISLATION.

Turnpike System.

It is owing to the turnpike system of road management that England is so superior to other countries with respect to her public roads.

The legislature, by giving powers to persons willing to come forward as subscribers, commissioners, or trustees, and act together for the purpose of making new roads, or improving old ones, adopted the wisest principle for securing an abundance of good roads.

Had the legislature refused to incorporate those persons who have executed the duties of turnpike trustees, and given the management of the roads to the government, or left them wholly with the parishes, this country could never have reached the degree of wealth and prosperity to which it has arrived, for want of proper means of inland communication.

It must be quite clear to every one who has carefully examined this subject, that nothing but leaving the management of the roads to

those persons who live in their neighbourhood, would ever have induced the people of England to pay, as they now do, a road revenue, arising from turnpike tolls, to the amount of 1,200,000l. a year*: for, although tolls are in every respect fair and proper for maintaining a road; and although Government, by employing scientific engineers, might have expended the produce of them with greater skill than country gentlemen; the hostility to pay them, if they had been wholly at the disposal of Government, would no doubt have prevented the making of useful roads so universally over the whole country as they have been made under the established system.

It should be remembered, that turnpike roads owe their origin, in many instances, to private subscriptions of considerable amount; and, in every such case, the main inducement to subscribe must have been the entrusting of the management of the funds to the subscribers, and giving them corporate powers.

The same principle of association has led to the making of the canals, the docks, the great bridges, and all the most useful public works of the country; and it is not conceivable how

* See, in Appendix, No. VI., an Account of the Income, Debt, and Expenditure of all the Road Trusts in England.