The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1882-03-07

any kind in the vicinity -of
Dallas or accessible suitable for
paving purposes, therefore wooden
material alone must be considered. The
Nicholson pavement has become very uns
popular IN great many localities. Still it
is useful, economical and most valuable
pavement, and the only practicable kind
for numerous places of which Dallas is one.
A writer for the San Antonio Express, dis
cussing pavements for the Alamo City, saws:
Now, as to wooden pavements, which
have been condemned in sweeping terms
by some learned engineers, whose opinions
have profoundly affected certain of the
city fathers, let us consider few
common sense ideas. Surprising some
great Texas land holder were to buy lot
of pine scantling TO fence in his ranch, what
would people say of him2 Why, simply,
that he was. crazy, grossly ignorant, or
willtully wasting his money, But when he
makes his fence of post oak, cedar or mes
quite 1t is accepted us proper and durable.
so II was Just as absurd to lay hundreds of
miles of streets with pine block payements
as 1t would for the farmer to fence with
common pine posts. And it is curious
fact that no learned civil engineer knew as
much about the perishability OF soft pine as
the simplest farmers boy until the cele-
brated Nicholson pavement company
had made its millions of money and ceased
to exist. Now they wake up with an aston
tonlshed gaze at the ruin they have fostered
and see all sorts of hydra headed monsters
starting up in malarial clouds from the bro
ken streets. But the farmer has AL these
years climbed over his post and board fences
built at the beginning of the Nicholson
furore and they still contine his herds and
protect his crops.
wooden pavements are not yet banished
from use. They are still being laid of
such material as would be used for posts
where durability is required Mesquite
is here the most convenient and the
cheapest. 1--we oak will be. found little il
any inferior Either could be laid down at
the actual cost of material and labor for
about 500 per square yard. but there is no
money in 1t for speculative company.
Il have seen many miles of Hungarian
pavement laid, and know that where
traffic is heavy ruts will wear in it and il
needs repairing, even when made of the
best of granite or basalt. Neither, how.
ever, is available here except at q cost al
most prohibitive.
I'm properly laid wooden pavement the
interstices between the blocks are filled
with fine gravel; saturated with boiling
coal-tar, and are therefore more imperviou!
to moisture than any other pavement, a!
none of the durable woods will Absorb
moisture. Consequently, all the talk abou
insalubrity arises from want of considera
ton and is without proof"
In easy reach OF Dallas there is an abun
dance of bois dare, the hardest, most dur
able and best wood that can be used TO
pavement. There is also mesquite timber
though not in such quantities as is arount
San Antonio, and illimtable quantities o
post-oak and other hard woods. We hay,
all the gravel, too, necessary for filling the
interstices, and there is naught in the way
of Dallas having paved streets if the citSS
council will have a little enterprise anc
rise to the dignity of little common, sense