ROADS AND STREETS. In current usage "road" is ap plied as a general term for all broad made ways from place to place, whether with separate side-paths for foot-passengers or not, while "street" is confined to the roads through towns, villages and other inhabited places, more or less lined by houses and other buildings on either side. The present article is confined to the methods adopted in making roads, from the first great road makers, the Romans, down to modern times. The roadways of times anterior to the Romans, at least in Europe, were merely the tracks worn by the feet of pedestrians and animals, and the wheels of vehicular traffic.
The earliest Toads about which anything definite is known, so far as construction is concerned, are those of ancient Rome, one of the oldest of which and the most cele brated for the grandeur of its works—the Appian Way—was commenced in 312 B.C. Roman roads are remarkable for pre serving a straight course from point to point regardless of ob stacles which might have been easily avoided. They appear to have been often laid out in a line with some prominent landmark, and their general straightness is perhaps due to convenience in setting them 'out. In solidity of construction they have never been excelled, and many of them still remain, often forming the foundation of a more modern road, and in some instances con stituting the road surface now used. In England many lengths of Roman road which had fallen into disuse have been re-opened and modernized since 192o. It is possible, with the help of allusions of ancient writers, to follow the ideal mode of con struction, though this was not always adopted. Two parallel trenches were first cut to mark the breadth of the road; loose earth was removed until a solid foundation was reached ; and it was replaced by proper material consolidated by ramming, or other means were taken to form a solid foundation for the body of the road. This appears often to have been composed of four layers, generally of local materials, though 'sometimes they were brought from considerable distances. The lowest layer consisted of two or three courses of flat stones, or, when these were not obtainable, of other stones, generally laid in mortar; the second layer was composed of rubble masonry of smaller stones, or a coarse concrete; the third of a finer concrete, on which was laid a pavement of polygonal blocks of hard stone jointed with the greatest nicety. The four layers are found to be often 3 ft. or
more in thickness, but the lower ones were dispensed with on rock, on which the paving stones were sometimes laid almost directly. The paved part of a great road appears to have been about 14 ft. wide, and on either side, and separated from it by raised stone edgings, were unpaved sideways, each of half the width of the paved road. Where, as on many roads, the surface was not paved, it was made of hard concrete, or pebbles or flints set in mortar. Sometimes clay and marl were used instead of mortar, and it would seem that where inferior materials were used the road was made higher above the ground and rounder in cross section. Streets were paved with large polygonal blocks laid as above described, and footways with rectangular slabs. Specimens are still to be seen in Rome and Pompeii, while in Britain many of the roads were of hard gravel or had a cobbled surface. There are no traces of Roman influence in the later roads in England, but in France the Roman method appears to have been followed to some extent when new roads were con structed about the beginning of the 18th century. A foundation of stones on the flat was laid, and over that two layers of con siderable thickness, of larger and smaller stones, bordered by large stones on edge, which appeared on the surface of the road. A French chaussee with accotements still retains some resemblance to the old Roman roads.
The almost incredibly bad state of the roads in England towards the latter part of the 17th century appears from the accounts cited by Macaulay (Hist. c. iii.). It was due chiefly to the state of the law, which compelled each parish to maintain its own roads by statute labour, but the establishment of turnpike trusts and the maintenance of roads by tolls do not appear to have effected any great improvement. At the time of Arthur Young's six months' tour in 1770 the roads would seem to have been almost as bad as ever, and it is doubtful if there was much improvement up to the beginning of the T9th century. The turnpike roads were generally managed by ignorant and incompetent men until Telford and McAdam brought scien tific principles and regular system to their construction and repair.