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In thisinstance the word metal means stone.The English word comes from Latin metallum, a mine or quarry. So a metal was anything useful that had been extracted from the ground. Since most of the substances men searched for were what we now call metals (gold, silver, tin, copper, and the like), the shift of sense is easy to understand.

The old sense survived for another class of substances that were likewise extracted from the ground. Historically, these have included sand, clay, rock and earthen matter in general. Near the end of the eighteenth century, the word started to be used in particular for the crushed rock that formed part of the system of building a sealed and waterproof road surface pioneered by the Scots engineer John McAdam. It’s from that specific use of the word that the term road metal derives.

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Q: Why are gravel roads called metal roads?
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Continue Learning about History of Western Civilization

Is gypsum or gravel a resource used to build roads?

The Answer Is Gravel, a size of rock, is a common resource used tobuild roads. It is made of small pieces of rocks andsand. Many roads are made of just gravel. Otherroads are gravel covered with asphalt or concrete.Concrete is a mixture of gravel, sand,water, and cement.


Were Roman roads called aqueducts?

No, aqueducts were used to carry clean water to cities. The names of the types of roads were via munita for the stone-paved road, via glareata for the gravel surfaced road and via terrena for the leveled earth road.


What were the roads called constructed by placing logs together?

Log roads


What do you mean by metalled and unmetalled roads?

An unmetalled road has no surface covering over the bare earth or grass track. a "metalled" road is a concrete or asphalt road, as opposed to a dirt or gravel road


Which people united their empire with a road system that extended more than 12 000 miles?

The Romans are famous for having built a great network of roads around their empire and for having invented the stone-paved roads, which had a military purpose (they speeded up the movement of troops and made the transport of supplies to the soldiers at the front or stationed in garrisons quicker and easier). The Romans built far more than 12,000 miles of roads, The network of roads in the empire totalled 400,000 kilometres (249,000 miles). The famous Roman stone-paved roads constitute 20% of this network; that is, 80,500 kilometres (50,000 miles). The other roads were either paved with gravel or were levelled earth roads.