THIS treatise is divided into two parts. The first relates to the making and the maintaining of Macadamised Roads, while the second part deals with Carriageways and Footpaths.
Although much has been written on the subject of making and maintaining macadamised roads, the recent introduction of mechanical appliances for quarrying, manufacturing, and consolidating the metalling has led to important changes on the older methods, whereby more expeditious, effective, and economical work has been rendered possible. The effect of the transfer of the management of the highways to the County Councils by the Local Government Acts has afforded scope for road maintenance on a larger scale than has hitherto been practised in this country.
The information here given, which treats of all matters relating to the systematic making and repairing of roads and streets, is for the most part the result of experience of the practical work of constructing roads and their subsequent maintenance, extending over a considerable number of years. The methods of carrying out the work and the cost of each operation are given in detail, and, it is hoped, are now brought together in a useful form.
In the second part, all the recognised descriptions of material used in the paving of carriageways and footways, and the latest methods of construction adopted in the principal cities and towns of the kingdom, are described. The cost of forming pavements and the comparative wear are also given in detail. The congestion of pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the larger towns, and the means of obviating the delays inseparable from the present state of matters, are noticed at some length. The benefits likely to result from the construction of subways are also described in a concise manner, while other matters of general importance receive due and adequate notice.