Eureka Reporter | 1904-09-16 | Page 5 | Drainage for Good Roads

drainage for good roads it Is instructive to observe how steadily the feeling Is growing that drainage and not thickness of metal ins 13 the main essential in road mak ing however much we may respect the memories of macadam telford and other great road builders who first led public authorities toward a sensible method of construction for country highways the fact remains that many of their recommendations are now known to be misleading their advice was important at the time when it aas given but it is not in keeping with the broader knowl edge of the present time gained by careful examination of roads built in strict conformity with well known specifications years ago the theory of thin roads with a V shaped drain along the received favor thia V shaped drain Is as effective both for removing the water and sup porting the as side drains and a telford base its cost Is approximately seventy seven cents per lineal foot of road less than construe tion with a telford base and two drains and thirty five cents less than the same base with a single side drain this system of construction Is dl erectly opposite to that advocated in most of the accepted manuals on the subject the old idea has been to get the water off tae roadbed just as quickly as possible to accomplish this the has been crowned and rolled and the lower courses of stone are coarse and often of congiu erable thickness by the new ss tern of construction the water remains on the roadbed and is collected by the outlet drains at fifty foot points the drainage not being distributed along each side of the road but con cent rated at a regular ser es of points engineering record