Clarke courier. [volume] (Berryville, Va.) 1869-1997, 1908-04-22
Fast Moving Automobiles Destroying
Worlds Good Roads.

ductlng series OF very interesting
experiments to learn the amount
of damage done TO the rock surface
thoroughfares 10y automobiles.
The results prove that the modern
fast moving motor car is the great
est menace To macadam roads that
hos ever made its appearance.
On some stretches of thorough
fare, especially in New England,
where many broad and smooth
roads haxe been constructed. the
retrogression is. not less than 40
per cent and it has been forced
upon the Director of ths-Ofice of
Public Roads and upon many high
way engineers that if some plan il
not speedily devised for nvercom-
ing the bad effects Of mans latest
and most sensational mode of land
transportation. the monetary loss
~ill be stupendous and the good
work of many years will 90 for
naught.
Ii isnot only in America that this
condition prevails. The men of
England, France, Germany, Hol-
land, Belgium and other countries
of the old world where hard sur
faced highways are appreciated
have also learned that the big soft
rubber tires of the automobile are
doingan almost increditable amount
of harm. France has officially
taken cognizancc of the condition
and has called an International
Congress To meet at Paris on Octo-
ber IL to discuss plans for saving
the roads, while in no way inter-
fering with the>levelopment of the
automobile, for no scientist will
condemn one worthy civilizing in
tiuence because il temporarily CON
fiicts with another. He willmerely
admit that a new condition has
arisen and then set on foot an in
vestigation with the idea of master
ing it.
To many IL may seem beyond
belief that a pneumatic rubber tire
can work any injury TO road COM
posed of bits of crushed flint rock,
but it becomes plain when the
theory of such roads is explained.
The macadam road, named after
John Douden Macadam of Ayr,
Scotland. who was for years high
way surveyor of Bristol, was first
laid down by the eminent French
road engineer Tresauget of Linn
oges, whowisely figured that slowly
moving iron tired wagons would
crush dust particles from the stones
of the roads surface; that those
particles would be constantly sifted
between the interstices of the large
stones; that every passing wagon
would crush them firmer into all
rutS and Inequalities; that rains
would aid and the ultimate result
would be "A smooth surface, water
shedding highway.
Tresauget pinned wisely; Mac
Adam came two decades later and
made slight change in the laying
of the road foundation and gave to
such thoroughfares his name.
For a century and quarter the
wisdom of the road engineers oi
Limoges and Ayr was justified
Then arose a condition they haC
never figured on; fast moving
vehicle running on broad soft tires
| The roads began to suffer at one,
for the following reasons: The
rubber tire, being soft, creates nC
rock dust itself as does the iroI
tire of a wagon, and the very lif,
of these roads demands a constan
supply of that material. 1t is tn,
surface binder that keeps the road
sn Doth; cracks filled in; that main
tains the evenness and binds tn,
rubble stones into one imperviou
mass. Every iron tire wheel doe
its own small quota of good b,
acting as a rock dust maker and
miniature road roller. The aut
whirring along at dizzy speed sim
> ply fiattened its tires against tn
ground as it sped and the tractiv
force so exerted hurled the preciou
/ rock dust into the air and fror
, where it as swept 1t to the adjacen
farms and lawns in binding clouds
, So pronounced was the mere dus
, nuisance created in many portion
: of the country that real estate dr
creased in value to an appreciabl