Roadstead

“ If he followed them long enough, they would mount from knobs to foothills and from foothills to peaks. The metaled turnpikes would dwindle and end in clay roads. These roads would in time give way to rougher trails, rock-strewn and licked by the little, whispering waters that make rivers, and he would travel by creek-bed ways over which wagons, if they go at all, must strain their axles and where men ride mules with their luggage in saddle-bags. ”

“ By 'roads' must be understood bridle-paths, worn by traffic alone across the gravelly valleys, but elsewhere constructed with great toil and expense, as Nature compels the road-maker to follow her lead, and carry his track along the narrow valleys, ravines, gorges, and chasms which she has marked out for him. For miles at a time this road has been blasted out of precipices from 1,000 feet to 3,000 feet in depth, and is merely a ledge above a raging torrent, the worst parts, chiefly those round rocky projections, being 'scaffolded,' i. ”

“ A couple of inches of concrete laid over a garden-path or a sheep-track, with the cracks filled in with tar, represents the zenith of road construction in this country of ninety odd million inhabitants. I should like to see some of those concrete roads when they have had a few years' solid wear with heavy lorries and occasional traction engines.
Ninety-five per cent. or more, however, of America's highways are dirt roads, or what they are pleased to call "Natural Gravel." In many cases they comprise merely a much worn trail, and as often as not a pair of ruts worn in the prairie. ”

“ With the settling of the country and a new century came a new age of road-building. Travel until now had been on north and south routes—on portage paths, which usually ran north and south between the heads of rivers which flowed north or south, on routes of the buffalo, which the herds had laid on north and south lines during their annual migrations, and on Indian trails which had been worn deep by the nations of the north and those of the south during their immemorial conflicts. ”

“ When a new road is laid out it is important that it should be located in the best attainable place, considering the natural formation of the surrounding country; for when a highway is once established it is impossible to say how long the tide of humanity and commercial traffic will seek passage over it. While the ordinary processes of Nature—rain, thaw, and frost—are ever at work lowering the hills and mountains and filling up the valleys and lowlands, the public highways of a country remain in the same relative positions from age to age. ”

“ It is what is known as a "dirt" road, well kept and level, of the sort beloved of horses and horsemen, and it lies close to the stream, between it and the farm lands. At every turn a new and wonderful panorama of green and yellow landscape and azure expanse of water bursts upon the lucky traveler along this blessed highway. Still, being a "dirt" road, when one drives along it at speed there arises in midsummer a slight pillar of dust as the conveyance passes, and one may from a distance note the approach of a possible visitor. ”

“ Soils and clays, sand and ores, gravels and rocks, are transformed into beautiful roads, streets, and boulevards, by methods which conform with their great varieties of characters and with nature's laws. The art of road-building depends largely for its success upon being carried on in conformity with certain general principles. ”

“ It is never so hard as to resist the wearing down of feet and of vehicles. Moreover, those who are acquainted with chalk countries must have noticed how a road is not only naturally cut into the soil by usage, but forms of itself a kind of embankment upon a hillside from the plastic nature of the soil. The platform of the road is pressed outward, and kneaded, so to speak, into an outer escarpment, which would make such a track, for generations after it was abandoned, quite plain along the hillside. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That all parts of the road which the President shall direct to be made, in case the trees are standing, shall be cleared the whole width of four rods; and the road shall be raised in the middle of the carriageway with stone, earth, or gravel and sand, or a combination of some or all of them, leaving or making, as the case may be, a ditch or water course on each side and contiguous to said carriageway, and in no instance shall there be an elevation in said road, when finished, greater than an angle of five degrees with the horizon. ”

“ Nothing obstructs the view, and you can see long distances over the downs, which are bereft of all timber except an occasional clump of pines that the axe has spared because of the beneficial influence the geomancers declare they exercise over the neighbourhood. The roadway in places [Pg 144] is cut deeply into the ground; for the path worn by the attrition of countless feet soon becomes a waterchannel, and the roadway in the rains is often the bed of a rapid stream. ”

“ Before the adoption of scientific road-making, the usual way of forming a new road was, first to lay along it a collection of large stones, and then to heap up thereon small stones and road dirt in such a way that the road assumed the shape of the upper half of an orange, the convexity often being so pronounced that vehicles kept along the summit of the eminence because it was dangerous for them, especially in rainy weather, to go along the slope on either side. ”

“ Country roads can be made far more useful and attractive than they usually are, and this may be secured by the expenditure of only a small amount of labor and money. Although such improvements are not necessary, they make the surroundings attractive and inviting and add to the value of property and the pleasure of the traveler.
[Pg 162] If trees are planted alongside the road they should be far enough back to admit the wind and sun. Most strong growing trees are apt to extend their roots under the gutters and even beneath the roadway if they are planted too close to the roadside. ”

“ The art of highway engineering, that is to say, of the construction of roads, was considered to have been developed to a high degree of perfection at the end of the last century, as evidenced by the magnificent system of broken-stone roads which were in existence at that time in France, more especially, and in England and other foreign countries, while in the United States successful systems of broken-stone roads had been begun in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and a few other eastern states. ”

“ Highways constructed without the addition of surfacing material to the natural soil of the right-of-way are usually called earth roads. But if the natural soil exhibits peculiar characteristics or is of a distinct type, the road may be referred to by some distinctive name indicating that fact. Hence, roads are referred to as clay, gumbo, sandy or caliche roads as local custom may elect. ”

“ Eastern horse would break his neck and yours, too. The driver jams on brakes; and you drop down a terribly steep grade in a series of switchbacks, or zigzags, to the Bridge. It is the most spectacularly steep road I know in America. It could not be any steeper and not drop straight; and there isn't anything between you and the drop but your horses' good sense. It is one of the places where you don't want to hit your horse; for if he jumps, the wagon will not keep to the trail. ”

“ The unfortunate motorist is perhaps ploughing his way steadily along through the gravel, dust, and sand. He encounters a barrier across the road bearing a notice that repairs are going on and that he must follow the detour indicated. The road selected, I believe, is generally the one with the most pot-holes, ruts, mountains, canyons, etc., in its formation in the surrounding district. ”

“ Any system is radically defective which scrapes the dust and worn-out soil of the gutters or the turf and loam of the roadside upon the road-bed. Perhaps this kind of repairing is better than none in many localities; but as civilization advances and the true principles of road-making become better known, after the foundation of a road-bed has been properly established, nothing but good road material will ever be put upon it, and this will be put there from time to time as needed to keep up a continual good condition of the road. ”

“ Evidence remains today to show what great thoroughfares these buffalo roads were, for on the summit of many of the greater watersheds may be seen the remains of the old courses, and there the hoofprints of centuries of travel may yet be read. If the summit should be bare of trees, the very contour of the ground may suggest the old-time, deeply-trod roadway; where a forest lies over the summit a remarkably significant open aisle in the woods speaks yet more plainly of the ancient highway, where only shrubs and little trees are found in the center of the track. ”

“ Next to the hearty handshake and ready lift at the handspike, where neighbors swapped work at log-rollings, was the greeting when, at fixed periods, all able-bodied men met to open up or work upon the roads. My child-feet pattered along many of the well-constructed thoroughfares of today when they were only indistinct tracings—long lines of deadened trees, deep-worn horse paths, and serpentine tracks of wabbling wagon wheels. ”

“ Indeed, the farmer does not seem to make any calculations of the weight taken. He loads his wagon as best he can, and the only care is not to exceed the quantity which it will carry; whether the team can draw the load, is not a consideration. . ." Such arguments prevailed in the day when timber was considered almost a nuisance, and plank roads spread far and wide.
Few who were acquainted with primitive conditions have left us anything vivid in the way of descriptions of roads and road-making. ”

“ In selecting a road material it is well to consider the agencies of destruction to roads that have to be met. Among the most important are the wearing action of wheels and horses' feet, frost, rain, and wind. ”

“ Every foot added in width, however, has contained a lesson in American history; every road, as we have said, indicates a need; and the wider the road, it may be added, the greater the need. An expanding nation, in a moment's time, burst westward through these narrow trails, and left them standing as open roadways. Few material objects today suggest to our eyes this marvelous movement. These old routes with their many winding tracks, the ponderous bridges and sagging mile-posts, [21] are relics of those momentous days. ”

“ Another great mistake is often made of spreading large and small stones over a well-graded and well-drained foundation and leaving them thus for traffic to consolidate. The surface of a road left in this manner is often kept in constant turmoil by the larger stones, which work themselves to the surface and are knocked hither and thither by the wheels of vehicles and the feet of animals. ”

“ For mile after mile I now alternately ride and trundle along donkey-paths, by the side of an artificial highway that would be an enterprise worthy of a European State. The surface of the road is either gravelled or of broken rock, and well rounded for self-drain- age; it is graded over the mountains, and wooden bridges, with substantial rock supports, are built across the streams; nothing is lacking except the vehicles to utilize it. ”

“ Roadways will grow a better class of timber and trees; they are rich in soil, generally, because they pass through the most fertile regions of the country and, up to this time, they have been waste land. I believe that the farmer is right in his wish that trees which shut in the roadsides should be cut away, that the sunlight should be let in and the roads hard-surfaced. ”

“ I was astonished to find that at many points in Fayette and neighboring counties the old course of the road can be distinctly traced in fields which have for half a century and more been under constant cultivation. If, at certain points, [Pg 204] cultivation and the elements have pounded the old track level with the surrounding ground, a few steps in either direction will bring the explorer instantly to plain evidence of its course—except where the road-bed is, today, a travelled lane or road. ”

“ Stone roads are liable to get out of order because of too much water or want of water; also, when the natural roadbed is soft and springy and has not been sufficiently drained; when water is allowed to stand in ditches and form pools along the road, and when the "open winters" give us a superabundance of wet. Before the road becomes thoroughly consolidated by travel it is liable to become soft and stones get loose and move under the wheels of the heavily loaded wagons. In the earth foundation on which the stone bed rests the water finds the soft spots. ”

“ The highway itself roughly bisects the property—the best of whose grass and arable lands are contained in the southern division—and can be reached from the house, if one likes, through the long beech thicket by way of a narrow path, which, entering near the stables, runs as far as the containing hedge, in which, at some fifty yards from the main entrance, is a private wicket, leading down by a couple of steps to the road. ”

“ If the road is of good stone, four to five inches rise in ten feet is sufficient, gravel, and other inferior material, will allow a little more. In this section it may be worth while to notice the situation of the hedge and ditch, or rill on each side of the road, a more common, but I think a more dangerous and worse way, is to form the ditch close to the road, and to plant the quick upon a raised bank beyond it. ”

“ The modern highway is seldom in a direct line. A hill, a ford, or a wood sufficed to render it circuitous. All roads indeed through hilly countries were originally struck out by drivers of pack-horses, who, to avoid bogs, chose the upper ground. Roads were first made the subject of legislation in England in the sixteenth century: until then, they had been made at will and repaired at pleasure. ”