Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/193

be adopted to good and so cheap in those places where the materials got in the neighbourhood are not sufficient for supporting the roads. A coating of whinstone is, for instance, more durable than the gravel with which the roads round London are made and repaired; but much less so than paving; although the freight and carriage of the whinstone, and of the paving-stones, which form the principal items of the expense, are nearly the same. Scotch whinstone, or the granite rubble (that is, rough chippings of granite,) could not, I should think, be delivered into barges in the river, at less than from 14s. to 15s. per ton, the freight alone being from 11s. to 12s., while the price of Aberdeen granite, in the same situation, is only from 19s. to 21s. and 22s. Maidstone ragstone in the rubble state, costs about 7s. per ton: it is a limestone, and much less durable than the whin. The carriage from the river to the road, of all these, is of course the same. Flint, again, is so much less durable than whin, that it will not bear the expense of carriage (which may be taken at from 1s. 6d. to 2s. per ton per mile) from any distance, to make it preferable to the gravel, or paving, in point of cost, for the roads near London. A double iron rail-road, to suit the London waggons, which some have recommended, would cost about 4,500l. per mile, and would be fitted for waggons only of one precise width, and for waggons or heavy carts only; while, from the difficulty of crossing it, it would form rather an obstacle to light carriages. Blocks of Aberdeen granite, twelve inches wide and fifteen inches deep, laid in the way of the wheels (as recommended by others,) would be nearly as expensive; and the eight joints, which would be formed between the stone and the gravel, by four rows of stone, would be found extremely troublesome and inconvenient. Both these substitutes for paving, therefore,