ROAD METALLING METHODS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 468, 25 May 1912, Page 3

ROAD METALLING METHODS.

In the presence of quite a crowd of interested spectators, a start was made this week upon the new system which Newmarket is adopting in the permanent improvement of the main thoroughfares of the borough. The sum of £30,000 was recently voted by the ratepayers for the work, and the Newmarket Borough Council is now pioneering the new system by treating its roads with bituminous bound heated stone macadam. While this system is quite new to New Zealand, it has been generally adopted in the Old Country, and in England twenty counties are now almost entirely roaded with bituminous metal. An English firm, the Tar Road Syndicate of London, has been given the contract in Newmarket and the firm's New Zealand manager, Mr J. Ross, is personally supervising the work. A considerable amount of new and expensive machinery had to be imported, and has been set in action in Park road, where the first trial of the new road-making material is being made. The system is apparently a very simple one. One of the first essentials is that the metal used must be abso-

lutely dry, and it is accordingly treated under a special process, passing through four separate chambers, where compressed heated air removes a!! trace of dampness from the stone matreial It is then driven through into a IsL'fia dip, whera it is treated, a ton at a time, in a boiling solution of bituminous substance, carefully prepared.. After being thoroughly saturated, in this solution; it is lifted by automatic winding gear into carts, and while still hot is spread over and rolled into the newlyformed roads. This process of topdressing with bituminous metal has the effect of withstanding the inroad of rain water to a far greater extent than any other method cf metal formation, and the ordinary wear and tear is far less.