Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/549

Rh no repairs to speak of, and its condition to-day compares very favorably with almost any street pavement of equal age which has been subjected to similar traffic.

Another kind of street improvement which must be considered is macadam. In small towns, and some quite large cities, most of the streets are improved in this way. When well maintained and kept smooth, but not too hard, it forms a most agreeable surface for driving. It should not, in the writer's judgment, be classed as a pavement at all, certainly not as a permanent one, and its use should be restricted to park drives and boulevards (for maintaining which liberal appropriations can be secured), and to suburban roads, where sewers and subsurface pipes have not yet been laid, and where temporary roads are required to furnish convenient communication between centers of population, and to assist in developing these districts.

Macadam has no place in a city street, nor is it wise to lay it on the entire width of a roadway. It best serves its purpose when laid in a comparatively narrow strip, leaving the sides of the road unimproved, except for the formation of earth gutters, so that the surface



water can readily soak away where the soil is sufficiently porous.

Macadam is the most expensive of all street surfaces to keep in thoroughly good condition, and in this country it is rarely, if ever, so maintained, except in some of our park roads.

The pavement which is to-day, more generally than any other, superseding stone on all streets where the traffic is not excessive