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Bill Thayer

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Scene 40
This webpage reproduces a section of
A Description of the Trajan Column
by John Hungerford Pollen

printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode,
printers to Queen Victoria
London, 1874

Text and engravings are in the public domain.

This page has been carefully proofread
and I believe it to be free of errors.
If you find a mistake though,
please let me know!

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Scene 42

Scenes of the spiral band running up the shaft

p139 XLI. Laying of a Road

The country is densely wooded. Soldiers are employed cutting the trees which are carefully laid together to form a road, such as are still known as "corduroy" roads in Canada.​a Longitudinal sleepers are laid over and under these, and broken stones and concrete above the timber. The road lies along the Danube.

A woodcut represents this construction, Fig. 28 in the preface, p70.

Two small buildings covered with a roof of planks nailed to the wall plates and ridge beams below them are distinguishable in the forest. Two heads of spies or prisoners are stuck on spears besides one of the buildings, perhaps those of assassins mentioned in the introduction, p83.


Thayer's Note:

a According to Chinook and Northwestern Jargon Pages (a resource now vanished from the Web): "A roadway formed of small logs laid side-by‑side, and named after the ribbed surface of the resulting roadway."

A good photograph of a corduroy road, with some interesting historical text, can be found here.


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Page updated: 3 Dec 17