ROADSTEAD

A place of anchorage. A ve el when at anchor is termed a roadster, in contradistinction to another under sail. ROADS, tire pathways formed through a country, by which pa engers and commodities may travel, or be transported, with more or le facility and expedition, from one place to another. Roads are of various kinds, according to the state of civilization and wealth of the country through which they are constructed, and according to the nature and extent of the traffic to be carried on upon them, from the rude paths of the aboriginal people, carried in direct lines over the natural surface of the country, pa able only by foot pa engers or pack-horses, to the comparatively perfect modern road, carried on an artificial causeway, and reduced to a nearly level surface at enormous expense by means of vast excavations, extensive embankments, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, and other expedients supplied by the skill and ingenuity of the civil eneineer. Advantages of Roids. — There is no expedient which more powerfully conduces to the advancement of a people in civilization, or to the extension of their prosperity and national wealth, than the construction of good roads, connecting the various centres of commerce and of industry about which tinmay have collected themselves. The invention of priming, the expedient of money, the adoption of a uniform system of weights and measures, would severally be Ineffectual, or productive of advantages of a very 10CG [s. 1080]