The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1879-09-04
Streets of London.

paved with the Belgian block. the mac
adamized roadway, the asphalt, patent
pavement and the wooden pavement.
In the centre of ''the city" the under
soil is composed Of very coarse debris of
all sorts, prominent amongst which are
large pieces of finty chalk, with q fair
proportion of ground up bricks; there
fore the paviors have not much trouble
in making solid foundation from the
start This, however, does not apply to
the north, south, east, west and suburbs,
where the soil is largely composed of
a very coarse clay, with finty stones
running through it. Out of this clay
are made many of the bricks used for
building purposes in London.
Regarding the use Of the Belgian
blocks, they first seem to be all of I'M
form size, cut out Of granite, trifle
smaller than those laid on Broad street,
Philadelphia. They prepare the soil for
laying them by first picking the ground
to the depth of foot or more, and all
the stones and pebbles arc carefully
sifted in sn all hand screens, as the work
progresses The larger stones are placed
on the bottom and the smaller ones on
top; then combination of Thames sand
and ordinary lime is thrown on, some
water is introduced, and the whole mix
ture of small stones, sand and lime is
stirred together with a spade, until the
surface assumes u uniform appearance;
then sprinkling of sand and small
pebbles is thrown over all on top, and
the whole smoothed over with large
piece of wood, about an inch thick, four
inches wide and eight feet long Those
pieces of timber look like gauge rods
(although larger) used by our tramways
to maintain the gauge of roads. On
top of the above described foundation
are laid the blocks, rs they are in Phil
adel phia.
The sewer inlets in London are not
placed, like ours, at the corner Of the
streets, but are something like the water
drains in Paramount Park, being but q
small iron grating, placed in what we
could call the gutter of the roadway;
but the gutter in London does not ex-
list, in either the asphalt or the wooden
pavcments; in the other sorts, large
Belgian blocks are laid end to end, and
two or three, placed alongside each
other, generally form the termination of
the paving The other descriptions
of pavements are merely graded to the
curb.
The macadamizcd roadway, which
forms the largest proportion of highway
in London, is constructed ON the same
style Of foundation as used for the Bel
gian blocks, small broken stones being
placed on the surface and rolled i'll by
large steam rollers
The asphalt is only used in the cen
trail portions of the city, around the
Bank of England, etc. 1t is placed in
this neighborhood to deaden the sound of
the enormous traffic which takes place
there. 1t is famous for its slippery
qualities when wet, and is said to have
caused the deaths of more horses than
any pavement before introduced. 1t is
laid on such a foundation as has been
already described but is made of such
good material that it almost becomes as
hard as rock when dry. The process of
making it is patent one, and IS con
troled by the Neutchatcl Paving Com
pany, limited. Everything in London
is ''limited," except the city and its
streets, which seem to have no definite
limits.
The wooden pavements come last and
can be divided into two kinds-that
which is placed on foundation like the
Belgian blocks, and that which is built
on wooden roadway. The all-wooden
road is made by first leveling the ground,
then rolling it and placing halfinch
planks directly across the street from
curb to curb. this is coated with tar,
then another layer of timber is placed
longwise or transversely over the planks,
also tarred, then wooden blocks, previ-
ously coated, in shape resembling our
Nicholson, are placed all over, end to
end, and small quarter-inch strips of
wood are nailed between each division
of blocks; into the aperture thus formed
is poured tar, and small pebbles are sift-
ed all over, filling in the crevices and
making solid roadway. Another
method of fixing the blocks is to insert
in each block a small iron wedge shaped
nail, which is first driven into the block,
and sufficient of it is left projecting so
that when it is placed alongside of its