#road builder

On November 26th 1836 John McAdam, the inventor of the "tar macadam" road surface, died..

A little known fact is that The McAdams changed their name due to the outlawing of the original family name, if this hadn't happened we may very well have been calling his innovation, Tarmacgregor, which also has a wee ring to it, don't you think? Adam was chosen as they were a religious lot!

John attended Mr. McDoick's school at Maybole, where he is said to have constructed a model of a road, although I can only find this on wiki so don't take it as gospel!

After his father, James died in 1770 he was sent to New York, entering the counting-house of a merchant uncle returning to Scotland with a considerable fortune in 1783, and purchased an estate at Sauchrie, Ayrshire.

Among other public offices he held that of road trustee. The highways of this country were at this time in a very bad condition, and McAdam at once began to consider how to effect reforms. At his own expense he began at Sauchrie, despite much opposition, a series of experiments in road making. In 1798 he moved to Falmouth, where he had received a government appointment, and continued his work there His general conclusion was that roads should be constructed of broken stone. In 1815, having been appointed surveyor-general of the Bristol roads, he was able to put his theories into practice.

In 1819 he published a Practical Essay on the Scientific Repair and Preservation of Roads, followed in 1820 by the Present State of Road-making. As the result of a parliamentary inquiry in 1823 into the whole question of road making, his views were adopted by the public authorities, and in 1827 he was appointed general surveyor of roads. In pursuing his investigations he had travelled over thirty thousand miles of road and expended over £5000.

Parliament reimbursed him for his expenses and gave him a handsome gratuity, but he declined a proffered knighthood. John held valid patents on his method of road building that he had developed, undertaken, and built at his own expense. His methods proved so important that his patents were not protected and enforced by the governments, even in at home. The term "Macadamized Road" long since has died out, but today the term TarMac is still used as a contraction of his process.

Parliament eventually awarded John some payment, but he was never completely compensated for his work or received royalties. Towards the end of his life John was offered knighthood for his work, which he turned down, but deferred it in favour of his son, James.

Oops! All Spiders!

(Concept) Designs for all of Anansi’s sons for Spider’s Tag! They all collectively play pivotal rolls in their own segments plus the entire plot itself! I’m not sure if I’ll be changing the names since the original ones are very literal in their abilities, but I’ve gotten used to calling them as such so they might just say with the original names as “code names” or something. We’ll see!

Also a fun deal is that they’re all based on different kinds of spiders! I wanted to match a spider species with the abilities each one is depicted with! Don’t worry about the implications of that, I’m sure it means very little.

Trouble Seer is based on a jumping spider! Jumping spiders are skittish and quick and known for their jumping capabilities of course! Since Trouble Seer could detect trouble from far away, this is meant to play on the idea of “jumping into action” and being “quick to react.” In actuality, it’s not just “trouble” he’s seeing, but he has an impressive emotional tap in that allows him to sense all kinds of emotions from further. This allows him to prepare a little easier for situations. However, too much negative energy can end up troubling him too!

Road Builder is a Trapdoor Spider! Trapdoor Spiders are self explanatory— they hide themselves in a little burrow with a trapdoor like mechanism to sense and catch prey from within (Or something like that)! Considering the idea of this spider building a mechanism, I felt this worked with Road Builder well. He has a special spinning drill top he can use to break terrain down and even use the dug up materials for other means. He’s quick to craft and tie loose ends in. He likes to show off a little but is a great shoulder to lean on.

(Click for a better look!) River Drinker is a Diving Bell Spider! Diving Bell Spiders create a little bubble for them to breathe out of and even make a bubble web type of domain. They’re predominantly aquatic spiders! River Drinker seems to have some special filter inside of a self-weaved straw where he’s able to blow floating bubbles from the water he sips and then blows into the straw. He can carry himself with these bubbles, and sometimes even smaller critters or his other brothers. They don’t pop from the inside! Probably a property of his own niche.

Game Skinner is a Brown Recluse! Brown Recluse Spiders have a devastatingly poisonous bite that opens the skin up in an awful open wound (only look this up if you have a strong enough stomach). Game Skinner likes to gather resources from other places or critters to dress himself all flashy with, even creating little trinkets or masks with them. Is it genuine creativity, or an assert of dominance? Who knows, he just likes be flashy and maybe a little full of himself.

Stone Thrower is a Bolas Spider! Bolas spiders use a weaved “capture ball” at the end of a silk thread called a bolas to toss at prey to knock them from the sky. This fits perfectly with Stone’s niche of stone throwing! However, this appears to be a practice predominantly by female bolas spiders by nature of their larger bodies… for Stone, he doesn’t need you to know that ;)

Lastly, Cushion is of course a Tarantula! You could think of him as a Cobalt Blue Tarantula to be a little more specific. Tarantulas have a lot of fuzz to them— their size and subtle fluff works for Cushion! He is the biggest of all his brothers. Cushion is able to inflate his fluffy abdomen to make it more like a giant pillow to help cushion falls of his family, smaller critters, or even his own. He’ll stick his fluffy hands to his mouth and blow, which forces the pushed air to the abdomen to make it grow. Seems as if it’s entirely indestructible— not even a needle can pop it in its biggest size!

Huge thanks to @shroingushour for helping me match spider species to certain abilities and @pazam for some design help!

Also a bonus, Stone without the red dye! There are times where he won’t be dyed in the story. Dying his entire body red for outings takes a lot of work!

On September *21st 1756 John McAdam, the surveyor who introduced the macadam system of road surfacing, was born in Ayr.

*Some sources will state 23rd September but this seems to be a point of contention amongst local historians.

McAdam moved to New York in 1790 to make his fortune. Arriving at the dawn of the Revolutionary War, he began working in his uncle’s business and became a successful merchant and prize agent (in essence, a fence who takes a cut from selling off the spoils of war).

Returning to Scotland, he purchased his own estate and soon became involved in the maintenance and governance of Ayrshire, becoming a road trustee.

At the time, roads were either dirt paths susceptible to rain and mud, or very expensive stone affairs that frequently broke down not long after whatever event precipitated their construction.

McAdam was convinced that massive stone slabs would not be needed to carry the weight of passing carriages, as long as the road was kept dry. McAdam came up with the idea of raising roadbeds to ensure adequate drainage. He then designed these roadbeds using broken stones laid in symmetrical, tight patterns and covered with small stones to create a hard surface. McAdam discovered that the best stone or gravel for road surfacing had to be broken or crushed, and then graded to a constant size of chippings.

On September 21st 1756 John McAdam, the surveyor who introduced the macadam system of road surfacing, was born in Ayr.

Please note some sources will state 23rd September and this seems to be a bone of contention amongst local historians.

As a young man he made his fortune selling cargos seized during the American Revolution in New York, and later operating coal and ironworks in Scotland where he was a turnpike trustee, before eventually settling in Bristol in 1802.  Here he worked as a surveyor, responsible for 149 miles of road. At this time, roads were uneven and full of potholes and ruts. This made coach, wagon and horse journeys long and uncomfortable, with damage to equipment and freight. Realising the importance of a smooth, compact and lasting road surface, and encouraged by Parliamentary enquiries, he developed his revolutionary new methods.

McAdam put forward an entirely new method of road construction as compared to all the previous methods. The first attempt to improve the road condition was made by him in 1815. Macadam was the Surveyor-General of Roads in England and his new concept of road construction became known by the year 1827. 

Macadam realised that the soil subgrade being the lowest portion of the pavement should be prepared properly and kept drained so as to carry the load transmitted through the pavement.

He was the first engineer to suggest that heavy foundation stones are not at all necessary to be placed at the bottom layer of construction. Macadam suggested that instead of placing large foundation stones, small size broken stones shall be spread over the prepared soil subgrade and compacted.   Similarly, the next layer of the pavement also was constructed above this layer with small broken stones.

Though the total thickness of construction was less than previous methods, this technique could serve as a carriageway in a better way due to improved load dispersion characteristics of compacted broken stone aggregates of smaller sizes.

The size of broken stones for the top layer was decided based on the stability under animal-drawn vehicles. The pavement surface was also prepared with a cross slope for drainage of surface water.

This was the first method based on scientific thinking. It was realised that the stresses due to the wheel load of traffic get decreased at the lower layers of the pavement and therefore it is not necessary to provide large and strong boulder stones as 'foundation or soling course' at the lowest layer of the pavement. This method became very popular far and wide.

McAdam maintained a house in Moffatt, where he spent part of each summer, and it was there he died in 1836, aged eighty. There is a memorial to him in Broxbourne Parish Church, describing him as “the great improver of British roads”, while his Hoddesdon home, now called Montagu House, bears a blue plaque.

John Loudon McAdam was said to have had a short temper with fools and opponents, but to have been mostly a kind, gentlemanly man.  He spent a considerable amount of his own money on his road-building schemes, asking no reward and receiving very little.

Crofter Calum MacLeod 63 shoulders his shovel after another days work on the road ... his own road on 29th April 1973.

Calum was a Local Assistant Keeper of Rona Lighthouse and the part-time postman for the north end of Raasay.

After decades of unsuccessful campaigning by the inhabitants of the north end of Raasay for a road, and several failed grant applications, Calum decided to build the road himself. Purchasing Thomas Aitken’s manual Road Making & Maintenance: A Practical Treatise for Engineers, Surveyors and Others for half a crown.

Over a period of about ten years between 1964 and 1974, he constructed one and three quarter miles of road between Brochel Castle and Arnish, using little more than a pick, a shovel and wheelbarrow. Initial blasting work was carried out and funded, to the sum of £1,900, by the Department of Agriculture’s Engineering Department, who supplied a compressor, explosives, driller, blaster, and men.

Several years after its completion, the road was finally adopted and surfaced by the local council. By then, Calum and his wife, Lexie, were the last inhabitants of Arnish.

On November 26th 1836 John McAdam, the inventor of the “tar macadam” road surface, died

John Loudon McAdam was born in Ayshire, Scotland, on September 21st, 1756. The youngest of ten children, John was sent to the New World at the age of 14 upon the death of his father. There he teamed up with his affluent uncle William McAdam to run a prosperous mercantile business in the budding harbour town of New York.

As the business’s profits grew so did the reputations of John and William, and in 1772 William was named president of the New York Chamber of Commerce and John was elected Treasurer in 1774 at the age of 18. Mounting tensions between the Colonies and Britain darkened John’s bright future, and his fate was sealed with his marriage to Gloriana Nicoll.

The Nicoll family had been sent by King Charles II in the 1670s to claim the territory of New Netherlands on behalf of his brother, the Duke of York. Neither McAdam nor his bride was willing to betray the Nicoll proud heritage. When the revolution broke out John enlisted in a loyalist regiment and served as a British government contractor. After the defeat of the British Army, those who fought against the Colonies, including John McAdam and his wife, forfeited all property to the new American government. The couple was repatriated in 1783, where they bought a house in Ayrshire, Scotland.

Though McAdam and his wife had lost a fortune, their loyalty to the crown was rewarded and McAdam soon became a prominent public figure. While serving as Deputy-Lieutenant of his county, McAdam noted the horrible road conditions throughout Scotland and England. Most were uneven, dangerous to travel on and costly to repair. In response, McAdam invented a road system that was rivalled only by the road design of Thomas Telford.

Instead of digging out roadways, McAdam raised them to promote water run-off. Digging outflow ditches on each side further enhanced run-off, and the layering of different size stones created the elevated roadbed. Large stones were laid for the base followed by stones no larger than four ounces. McAdam had realized that loose stones would pack tightly under the weight of traffic and provide a stable, even ride

.Avoiding the introduction of clay, dirt, or sand on the road surface further enhanced stability. McAdam roads didn’t wash away, lasted longer, and handled any weight or size of vehicle, thus making contemporary regulations concerning vehicle size and weight irrelevant. Most of all, McAdam roads could be constructed at a fraction of the cost of more established road construction techniques. In 1801 McAdam accepted the post of surveyor to the Bristol Turnpike Trust. By 1818, he was a consulting surveyor for no fewer than 34 road trusts.

The growing demand for his methods prompted McAdam to write two books, The Present System of Road Making and Practical Essay on the Scientific Repair and Preservation of Roads. By 1923, the number of road trusts consulting McAdam had risen to 70, with many of them managed by one of his three sons.

McAdam was appointed Surveyor General of Metropolitan Roads in Great Britain in 1827, and in 1830 the French Government adopted the McAdam system of road construction. Prior to his death McAdam was offered a knighthood, which he declined because of failing health. His oldest son James accepted the honour in his place.

On September 21st 1808, Eóghann MacColla,  commonly known in his native language as Bàrd Loch Fìne (the “Poet of Loch Fyne”), was born.

Known more commonly as Evan MacColl, yer man was born at Kenmore on the banks of Loch Fyne, Argyll and Bute, not to be confused with the Perthshire Kenmore, on Loch Tay.

It was with a rich heritage of tradition  MacColla was born into, his father was Dugald MacColl who was possessed of “the richest store of Celtic song of any man living in his part of the country.” His mother, Mary Cameron, “was noted for her storehouse of traditional tales, legendary and fairy tales.” and the are he was brought up in was by and large a  Gaelic speaking region, hence I am using his birth name in the language he knew as he grew up.

Though MacColla was fully employed farming and fishing, and later with road repairs, he nevertheless received a fair education. His father was fond of literature and procured books for his children when he could. The local village school offered a very limited education in English, and his father employed a tutor who taught his son English and instilled in him a love of Burns  and of English literature in general. His poetic efforts began in boyhood, founded on a rich vein of the native Gaelic literary tradition surrounding him in youth and inherited from his family, although also inflected by the growing influence of Lowland Scots and anglophone literature.

The majority of the MacColla family emigrated to Canada in 1831, but he could not make up his mind to leave Scotland. He continued his employment in road repairs while composing many of his best-regarded Gaelic lyrics. He published his first book of poems at his own expense in Glasgow in 1836. This was The Mountain Minstrel; or, Clàrsach nam Beann, and it sold enough to give the author a small profit. In 1837, he began contributing to the Gaelic Magazine then published in Glasgow. From October 1838 to January 1839, MacColl made a tour of northeast Scotland which was recorded in a diary published by Alexander Mackenzie in his biography of MacColla. Later in 1839 he became a clerk with the Customs House in Liverpool.

He remained in Liverpool until 1850, when, because of declining health, he obtained six months’ leave of absence and visited friends and relatives in Canada. While staying on his brother’s farm on the Trent River, he was introduced to Malcolm Cameron, then a Minister of the Crown and was offered a position in the Canadian Customs at Kingston, Ontario, which he accepted, a  post he stayed in for some thirty years.

MacColla wrote numerous poems while in Canada, including one in Gaelic in praise of a Scottish organization in Toronto in 1858. Being literate in Gaelic and was a well respected authority on the literature of the Highlands Eóghann was sought out in Canada by those who took an interest in the subject. During this time he became known as “the Gaelic Bard of Canada”

One of MacColl’s English poems is “Robin”, written for the occasion of the Burns Centennial celebration in Kingston.  The poem’s easy and melodious expression is in excellent imitation of Burns’ own style. He had been for many years the bard of the St. Andrew’s Society of Kingston, and his anniversary poems are greatly appreciated by all Scotsmen. His poetic gifts were inherited by his daughter, Mary J. MacColl who was also a published poet.

Taobh Abhainn Aora.

Mo chiad mìle beannachd air an èiteag chiùin cheanalta Bha leamsa glè leannanach an-raoir taobh Abhainn Aora

Mo rùn a’ chaileag Mhorairneach Dh'fhàg iomadh ògbhean farmadach Is na gillean chleachd bhith sealg orr’ A-nis air lorg mo ghaoil-sa

Fhir leis nach toigh bhith dealachadh Rid’ chridhe, fan bhon chailin ud Air neo chan fhada dh'fhanas tu Gun leòn nach leighis lèigh dhut.

Bean òg na pearsa dhàicheil i Bean òg a’ chridhe chàrdeil i Bean chaoin a’ bheulain blàth-bhinn ’S nan deud mar deàrrsadh grèine

Gu uile dreach mo leannain-sa A moladh mar bu mhath leam dhuibh ‘Sann dh'fheumainn spiorad rannaireachd Seann fhilidhean na Fèinne

Tha i gu lèir cho fhurailteach Cho ghaolach aobhach fhuranach ’S gu bheil mi fhin a h-uile là Dol tuille is tuille an dèidh oirr’

Translation

By River aray’s side

My hundred thousand blessings on the meek and mild precious maid who was most amorous with me last night by the River Aray

My desire the Morvern lass who made

many a young woman jealous - the lads

who used to pursue them now solicit

my loved one.

You who do not like to part with your heart, stay away from yon damsel other- wise it will not be long before you have a wound no physician could cure for you.

She is the young woman of the comely figure, the young woman of the friendly heart, the tender woman of the affectionately sweet talk and the teeth like shining sun.

In order to praise to you all the aspects of my sweetheart as I would wish, for sure I would need the versifying spirit of the old poets of the Fianna.