New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-05-18

as sensible as the nursery stony Of shingling .
church with buckwhest cakes; y'' tue wooden
pavement hal the merit Of being y'sry GOOD
when ii was first laid down; but the ed"ole
pavement is never good IL Is always hard TO
travel upon. always noisy, always dirty. and
when not dusty muddy. The eobble-stone BE-
ing round aud smooth cannot lie still; che dead
pressure upon it turns it over, displaces ir,
forces mp the gravel aud creates dust. The
cost Of keeping II III order, or rather Of at
tempting 10 do so--for from the very nature Of
the cobble it cannot be kept in good condition
is enormous. The Russ pavement has its good
qualities, but it is hardly better than the cQbble
for horses, is very costly and liable to get out
Of repair; but still the Russ is an improve
ment upor the cobble, and so is the Brussels
pavement which is now being laid in Fulton. ST.
But all granite pavements for streets are obnox-
ious to the same charge. When travelled by
heavy carriages and iron-shOd horses they wear
smooth, and constant aud most iniuri-
Gus dust is created by the incessant
action of carriage wheels, which in a dry
climate like ours renders them intolerabe.
Whatever objections can be raised against
grsnite-payed streets will lie with much greater
force against macadamized streets; bricks are
of course wholly unfit, wood is out Of the
question, and asphaltum will only do in cold
climates for sidewalks.
The ONLY substance then that can BIO profit
ably employed for street-payements in crowd
4 "a = str At As
proposition may at first appear, is the only suit
able one for great city, and by suitable we
mean economical aud agreeable. An iron pave
uent has the advantages of being more durable,
less costly, more easily laid down aud taken up,
better for horses and pedestrians, noiseless,
dustess, and mudless; and we look for
ward to the time when nearly every great
thoroughfare of the City will be pared
with this material, and dust dirt, and mud will
be unknown. There is nothing wild, visionary
or speculative in these antcipations. Our citl-
gems are rather remarkable for their practical
common sense and business enterprise, and they
cannot long remain insensible to the superior
advantages of iron floors for streets; shop
keepers, omnibus owners, cartmen, and all that
numerous class who hourly and daily experience
the Inconvenience, and suffer in pocket from
the i'll condition of our streets, and who, in fact,
form the great bulk of our population, as well
as those who merely walk the streets for plea
sure, should investigate this matter and COM
pei the attention of the City Official to this
subject.
The iron pavement in question has already
been thoroughly tested in Boston, aud we
learn is about TO be introduced into Lon
don aud Paris BY Fox, Henderson n Co.,
the great engineering firm Of England who
built the fret Crystal Palace. The invention Of
the iron pavement is the work of countryman
of our own, whose name We should be most hap
py TO mention if we knew it, and We doubt not
that in its practical results it will hardly rank
second to the iron railroad. A member OF the
firm of Sir Charles Fox, Henderson N Co., as
We understand, has been over here and made
contract with the proprietors of the iron pave
ment for the privilege of putting it down in Lon
don aud Paris. About six months ago small
part of Nassau-st., opposite the Post-Ollice, was
laid down with the new pavement, aud though
the cobbles on each side of it have been twice
repaired since, yet il looks IA firm, as smooth,
ard as solid as the day on which it was
laid. One OF the great advantages of the
ilcn pavement is that at the end of ten years
use the material of which it is composed will
be more valuable than when il was laid down,
30 that the cost of paving the streets will only
be 50 much money invested which may at any
time be realized by selling the rough material.
But the saving to the city in thousand other
respects which would result from the iron pave
Inent would be incalculable, and the greater
comforts of our streets, the increased health
ness ofour atmosphere would more than thou
sand times repay the cost of the iron pavement,
if il were thousand times greater than the
cobble-stone instead of being less.