The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-10-17

Since road construction is a matter
that is receiving at present greater and
more scientific attention throughout al
most the entire world than has ever
heretofore been given it. and since
some method for the construction of
better roads is being universally sought,
it viii probably be interesting, and pos
sibly beneficial, to know something of
the use of oil in the making of roads, a
method of road building that, in Cali
fornia, while still more or less in an
experimental stage, is meeting with
much success-especially under the new
method of tamping now in vogue.
1t was almost thirty-five years ago
that the first experiment with crude
petroleum for road beds was made, an
experiment instituted by the Noble
Brothers firm, in Boku, Russia. The
firm sprinkled all the streets of the
town with oil from the nearby oil wells,
the intention being to lay the dust,
which it effectively did; but on account
of the nature of the oil it did not be-
come hard, hence giving no evidence of
its being useful in road making. The
credit for the discovery that oil-that
is. the aspbaltic kind--can be so used
1t was noticed, some years ago, that
when oil was sprinkled on the surface
of the roads in California it would COM
bine or mix with the soil and produce
hard. smooth and impervious surface.
After this discovery, the next step
taken in the using of oil for road beds
was to spread the petroleum on the sur
face of the roadway, harrow it in, and
then sprinkle a thin layer of sand and
gravel ON the oiled soil and roll it until
smooth. 1t was then left to dry and
become hard. This process, on some
soils, produced an excellent rQad-but
road that lacked durability. The pro-
cess, however, proved an important step
in the right direction, paving the way
to later accomplishments that amount
to almost complete success-if not en-,
tirely complete.
From the later experiments it soon
became evident that if the soil of the
roadway could be thoroughly bituminiz
ed and every particle of the earth i'm
with asphaltic oil material
would be produced similar in character
to the bituminous rock used to a great
extent for street paving in California,
and that in accomplishing this the road
would be given a topping of sufficient
thickness to make it durable. This
realization led to many experiments. To
compress the bituminized earth heavy
smooth rollers were at first used, with
more or less success, but the use of roll
ers caused the leathery-like surface of
the road to buck and creep under the
heavy load, leaving the surface often in
waves.
The tamping machine, which is now
used to overcome this serious fault, was
invented about five years ago by a man
named Fitzgerald. The idea was con-
ceived from seeing the results made by
a band of sheep that had been driven
across a freshly oiled surface. The |
tread of the sheep had tamped the oil |
into the earth so thoroughly and packed |
it so hard and smooth that all that was
necessary was to build a machine that |
would produce the same results. Fitz |
gerald secured large, heavy log of
wood, drove it full of railroad spikes, |
put a frame around it, hitched horses |
to the machine and demonstrated that |
even the tread of sheep could be beaten.
This was the beginning of the present |
tamping machine that is proving so sat
isfactory in the construction of Califor- |
MIA S oil tapped roads-or petrolithic |
pavements.
The theory on which the machine |
works is: The feet-like projections of
the rolling cylinder penetrate the pull
verified soil, and the first time over the |
ground packs a portion of the soil at
the bottom of the loosened surface. By |
passing over the ground with |
the machine, layer after layer is lamp |
ed until perfectly solid, the machine
gradually being lifted to the surface !
The top will eventually become hard |
and smooth, and the roadway VIII after |