The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1904-08-16

u .names will live as long as
O A q civilization exists is that |
u "A r of John L. A1acadam, the
aos< road builder. Not only has
his name become a part of the Eng
Iish language. but the kind of road
which he built has been adopted by ali
civilized nations. The ancient Ro-
mans built stone roads. but they were
very different and vastly more expen-
siye than the macadam roads of mod
ern times. They built a substantial
foundation of rock. sometimes several
feet in depth, and then covered it with
a pavement of large fiat stones. This
kind of road will outIast any other
Indeed. some parts of the Apian Way.
the building of which was begun three
centuries before Christ are still in use.
and in good repair. 1t remained for
John L. Macadam, modern English
man, to prove that the great expen-
diture of time and money required in
the building of the old Roman roads
was largely wasted. He demonstrated
that a smooth. hard, enduring road
could be built of crushed stone a few
inches in depth properly spread and
compacted on foundation of earth.
The main points in successful mac
adam road building are: a. That the
foundation be properly constructed and
drained; % that the surface of the
road be slightly curved so as TO shed
water; and CD that the surface of the
fpichad road ha mazda ior5 ord s,,,oo+t,
and as nearly waterproof as possible
The last of these qualities is secured
by spreading on the stone in layers,
beginning with a layer of the largest
fragments and finishing with a layer
of very fine crushed stone with which
some sand is often incorporated. Each
layer is well compacted with a heavy
| roller.
Although the expense of building
macadam roads is trihing compared
with that of constructing a stone
paved road like that of the Roman
Emperor, Appius Claudius, it is still
SO great as to form the principal OBJ
stacle to macadamizing modern high
ways. The cost, of course. depends
largely on the ease with which sufta-
BILE stone may be secured. Where the
material has TO be transported by rail
for a considerable distance the cost
is greatly increased. some of the Mas
sachusetts highways have cost $1,000
to $4,000 a mile; while in some other
States good macadam roads have been
built for $500 to $4,000 per mile.
Some friends of the good roads move
ment hesitate to join in the demand
for national aid because they are APP
palled by the enormous expense in
volved in matchmaking the entire
road mileage of the country. Such
persons are laboring under mistake.
The national aid bills now before Con-
gress do not propose TO construct any
particular kind of road. They simply
propose to improve the public roads,"
and provide for investigations and
experiments to determine the best
kinds of road material ard the best
methods of road building" In a re-
cent article Representative Brownlow
says:
My own individual opinion is that
some of the principal thoroughfares
ought to be macadamized. Well in
formed road experts have estimated
that if one-tenth of the road mileage
of the country were macadamized and
the other nine-tenths were improved
in other and cheaper ways. using the
best local materials available, the cost
of hauling the farm products of the
United States to market would be re-
duced one-half."
If this estimate is correct, the saving
to the farmers would be enormous,
and would in few years be sufficient
to cover the entire expense Of making
the Improvements. Besides lessening
the cost of hauling, good roads will
bring to the people of the rural dis
tricts pleasures and benefits which
cannot be measured in money.