Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/778

 Blasting for Good Roads

By J. H. Squires, M.S., Ph.D.

��SOME corrective must be found for the present poor condition of roads that are already oppressive and promise to become intolerable.

As for the work of building or im- proving roads, the advent of dynamite into this field is reducing both time and labor to a minimum. For clearing a right of way by removing stumps and boulders, removing outcrops, getting rid of high sides and digging ditches — for proper drainage is the best of good roads insurance — it has been demonstra- ted that the highest point of efficiency is reached through the use of explosives.

Also for cutting away hillsides or bluffs and lowering grades — operations which heretofore have in many in- stances seemed prohibitive because of the labor required — this modern short- cut to the easy haul is destined to bring about a radical change in our roads.

For both the construction and main- tenance of good roads, it approaches the ideal, since it reduces time, labor, and expense, and produces results that make for permanency.

���Swamps and uncontrolled streams are hard on vehicles

���The condition revealed in the upper pic- ture corrected by a blasted ditch and a good culvert

��Bad drainage is the greatest enemy of good roads. Excess of water, more quickly than anything else, destroys a road. Relief is through drainage. Drain-

���Plan of loading preparatory to blasting a ditch through a swamp

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BLASTtNO CAP / CAFtTKIDQE^A

Proper method of placing and loading a boulder for smoke- hole shot

���Boulder in ditch flooding a road

��age ditches were formerly dug by hand labor; the cost was high and the work progressed slowly. Many are already more or less familiar with ditch blasting methods and the results that are ob- tained. In the rougher sections of the country, especially in the swamp and flooded areas, the use of dynamite for ditching cannot be too highly recom- mended. It does the work quicker, better, and cheaper. It permits good drainage at a low cost where any other method now known would mean poorer drainage and a great increase in cost. This applies to all types of ditches.

Excepting in some prairie regions, all road improving is attended with much stumping in or along the right of way. Most stumping on highway construction is now done by hand. The work is slow and expensive; the stumps are heavy and difficult to handle and are therefore simply rolled to the side of the road, where they remain as eye-sores for years. These stumps can be blasted out at small cost.

There is now much pick and bar work in removing boulders and ledges from the road. A careful study of conditions

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