Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-27
AFTER THE ISLANDS.
A Great Asphaltum Block Factory
Seeks Brunot's or Neville's.
DOES IT MEAN A BIG REVOLUTION ?
Text for a Glimpse at the Needs Of Our
Own City in Paving.
cOBBLEs COST MOST, AFTER ALL

'Tis not of 'the Isles of Greece, where
burning Sapho lived and sang" but OF
Neville and Brunot, that we are wont to
sing, and that attention is again called to
an account of the growing scarcity of manu-
featuring room. The inhabitants of those
isles have heretofore failed to take the tide
at its food. and SO have failed to be led on
to fortune and are not very much to be pit
led, say the men who have attempted
to promote enterprises on them. The latest
proposition was to finish "Short" McCreery's
railway project and fill up the back chan
mel for stock and railway yard, but it is
hinted there are kickers on this also, and
Mr.. Shafer states that nothing has been
done lately. AS the man who wrote the
stirring missionary hymn beginning From
Greenland'sicy mountains" etc., might say
very nearly as he said of Ceylon, every
prospect pleases, and only the inhabitants
are Indifferent" or so cranky that they can
not avail themselves of the favors fortune
attempts to thrust into their lap. Added to
river transportation is the additional incen-
tive offered to manufacturers by the fact that
the islands lie in the natural gas belt, and
they can have this fuel at home, though
were it to fail eventually, coal will be so
cheap for ages to come that the deprivation
Of gas would scarce be felt. Brunot is
ALSO IN THE POOL.
Neville will be when Senator Quay's dam
projects are completed. With that big con-
Meeting bridge spanning the Ohio and with
a transfer boat, manufacturers could load
cars in their works and run them into any of
the roads terminating in the city, and thus
place their works in direct connection with
any section of the Union. All that is likely to
stand in the way is the probability that owners
will ask too much for their ground, or at least
more than manufacturers will be able to see in
it. One town down that way might have been
three times as large as it now is had the people
who owned its manufacturing sites been able
to see their way to fortune by selling portion
reasonably.
An industry is at present seeking a lodgment
here. and it might be well for the general
benet1t should it be encouraged, not necessarily
subsidized, to take root Messrs. Jacob Q.
Dauhman, William Calhoun and G. L. Work,
of Philadelphia. are looking for site for the
establishment of a factory for the making Of
asphalt block for paving.
The anufacture of these blocks here would
be of incalculable advantage, not only for
home use, but river and railroad communica-
tguous would give an unfailing market for
any surplus.
CoBBLE STONES MUST GO.
1t will not be many years hence when COM
mon sense will decree that the abomination
known as cobble stone pavements must go. 1t
is doing this city great HARM much more than
the Chinese are doing. Pittsburg expends
more money, for its size. for fine draft horses
than any other city in the world, and it is not
only cruel and barbarous to knock them to
pieces on cobble stone pavements, but it is also
very expensive, and beside. the pavement
itself on streets where heavy hauling is done
costs three to four times as much in 20 years as
does the best pavement known.
The materials for manufacture of asphalt
blocks are practically inexhaustible. and lie in
or within short distance of the city. There
is deposit of solid hYdro-carbon, called Gra-
hamite, in West Virginia, just at our doors.
and we have here the petroleum refuse and
that of the gas factories, and there is no good
reason why Pittsburg, in the next decade,
might not be as well paved as Paris. Then, if
the Legislature can be induced to frame a
good road law, there is no reason why the poor
wretches in the penitentiary, workhouse and
jail might not be taken out and employed at
work Of which there can never be too much,
and without conflicting in the least with the
trade unions that so strenuously object to COM
petition with convict labor. Prisons might
then be made self-sustaining, and with Incl
dental profits to everybody, and farmers could
haul more stuff to the city with one horse than
they can now with two.