ROAD MAKING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 95, 26 August 1913, Page 4

ROAD MAKING.

The discussion on road materials- and maintenance at the recent International Road Congress was something of a triumph for the bituminous binder: such as tar and pitch. The engineering correspondent of a leading English provincial journal considers that foi tho most par: the only complaint'the delegates brought forward against bitumen was that it is costly—admil

tedly a serious drawback, but that it is, however, a step forward to have established the two principles of roadmaking embodied in a bituminousbound Macadam road—namely, thai the road shall be watertight From it: first beginning, and that the cementinj material betweon the road metal shall have a certain amount of resilience. Nc doubt it is physically possible to mak> a rigid, say a concrete, road .sufficient

!y strong to carry any traffic which cai j bo put on it, but in practice expense must bo considered, and having regaix to the fact that wheel loads are boil concentrated and moving, it appear! reasonable that, in order to make ; moderate depth of road material suffi cienly permanent, the crust at leas should possess resilience. Asphalt pos Besses such resilience, but in order t reduce cost it appears probable tha ordinary stone must form the mail

part of the road crust, and this bein; virtually unyielding in itself seems t cull for a yielding binder or cement The same writer states that the scienc of rondmaking is only just reawakin into life after a long period of stagna tion and worse, hut the signs are hope ful of a marked advance, based parti : on systematic observation and tests r different road constructions, but als largely, on a keener appreciation r 1 fundamental road phenomena. \