347
6 th, Roads from. Aberdeen to Inverness .—From Aberdeen , theroad branches off in several directions to Fochabers on the banksof Pe .Spe}':— 1st, By Ellon, Peterhead, Frasersburgh, and Banff ,64 miles : 2 d, By Old Meldrum, Banff , Portsoy, and Cullen, toFochabers, 71 miles: 3d, By Kintore, Huntly, and Keith, tothe same place, 541 miles. These lines, terminating at Focha-bers, are united into one road—passing through Elgin , Forres,and Nairn, to Inverness , 47$ miles—or in ail 118| miles by thecentre road.
7 lh, Road from Inverness to Thurso .—From Inverness , the roadextends by Dingwall, Tain, Dornoch, and Wick, to Thurso , in-tersecting the shire of Itoss, and stretching along the easterncoast of Sutherland and Caithness—in all 134-J miles from thetown of Inverness to the extremity of the island.
Although the above mentioned are the principal highways, yetthere are many other roads which pass in all directions through-out the whole extent of Scotland .
Chat. XVI. App. No. S.
On Bridges.
By Mr Richard Chhiciiton, Architect, Edinburgh . •
A full and complete description of all sorts of bridges, withthe most approved manner of erecting them, in all varieties olsituation and circumstances, would require a separate treatise,and far exceed the limits of the present article. It is thereforeonly proposed to explain the properties essential to well formedbridges of wood, iron or stone.
The essential requisites of all bridges are, chiefly, that theyform a safe and easy road across a river or chasm : That they af-ford a free passage to the river, so that in time of floods the roadbeyond the bridge may not be overflown, or the bridge endan-gered by the pressure of the water; and that they be so con-structed as to render them of the greatest possible durability.
All bridges should cross the river at right angles to the cur-rent : to suit which it often becomes necessary to make turns inthe line of road leading to the bridge; but although this may beunavoidable where the river is of some magnitude, yet there arefew roads vChere we do not find bridges built over trifling rivu-lets, to which very inconvenient, and sometimes hazardous turnshave been made from the line of the road, owing to the bridgebeing built at right angles to the stream as it chanced to run,when the same, and often less expense than the forming of suchawkward turns would have cut and banked up the channel of therivulet, so as to cause it cross the road at right angles, and ofcourse admit of the bridge being built to suit the road.