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road throughout, with a width of roadway of 18 feet, 14 of which
are bottomed and metalled.
3. In view of the very light traffic to
which this road will be exposed, it seems open to question
whether it should be macadamized or whether a surfacing of
disintegrated granite or of such material as we may find in
the road cuttings would not do. A macadamized road will cost
less to maintain, it will be a better road in wet weather and
will suffer less from the heavy rain storms occasionally ex-
perienced in the Colony. In any case, I strongly
recommend the macadamizing of all steep inclines and a foundation or
bottoming of rough stone all through. The saving, by adopting a
gravelled or disintegrated granite surface for a metalled one
would be about $600 per mile,
4. The steepest gradient on the road will be
1 in 16, but of this there is less than a mile. The ruling
gradient is 1 in 19, while a considerable portion of the road
is of extremely easy gradients, and much of it level.
5. We are now in a position to call for ten-
ders for the work, but, before doing so, it is necessary to de-
cide which section or sections should be first undertaken.
As I have already expressed myself in C.S.O.1033/1898, I am
strongly in favour of first constructing the road between
Shaukivan and Aberdeen, and so completing a carriage road
round the Island, leaving the construction of the section round
Mount Davis for future consideration. It will be seen that
the average cost per mile of section 1 is $16,310.20; of sec-
tion 2 $15,901; and of section 3 $26,475. The funds available
how