page_title: Macadam
section_title: McAdam's methods
hierarchical_section_title: Macadam / Advent of macadam / McAdam's methods
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Macadam Road, Nicolaus (Calif.). ca/ 1850s.
context_page_description: Macadam is a type of road construction, pioneered by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam around 1820, in which single-sized crushed stone layers of small angular stones are placed in shallow lifts and compacted thoroughly. A binding layer of stone dust may form; it may also, after rolling, be covered with a binder to keep dust and stones together. The method simplified what had been considered state of the art at that point.
context_section_description: McAdam's method was simpler, yet more effective at protecting roadways: he discovered that massive foundations of rock upon rock were unnecessary, and asserted that native soil alone would support the road and traffic upon it, as long as it was covered by a road crust that would protect the soil underneath from water and wear.
  Unlike Telford and other road builders of the time, McAdam laid his roads as level as possible. His 30-foot-wide (9.1 m) road required only a rise of 3 inches (7.6 cm) from the edges to the centre. Cambering and elevation of the road above the water table enabled rain water to run off into ditches on either side.
  Size of stones was central to the McAdam's road building theory. The lower 20-centimetre (7.9 in) road thickness was restricted to stones no larger than 7.5 centimetres (3.0 in). The upper 5-centimetre (2.0 in) layer of stones was limited to 2 centimetres (0.79 in) size and stones were checked by supervisors who carried scales. A workman could check the stone size himself by seeing if the stone would fit into his mouth. The importance of the 2 cm stone size was that the stones needed to be much smaller than the 4 in width of the iron carriage tyres that travelled on the road.
  McAdam believed that the "proper method" of breaking stones for utility and rapidity was accomplished by people sitting down and using small hammers, breaking the stones so that none of them was larger than six ounces in weight. He also wrote that the quality of the road would depend on how carefully the stones were spread on the surface over a sizeable space, one shovelful at a time.
  McAdam directed that no substance that would absorb water and affect the road by frost should be incorporated into the road. Neither was anything to be laid on the clean stone to bind the road. The action of the road traffic would cause the broken stone to combine with its own angles, merging into a level, solid surface that would withstand weather or traffic.
  Through his road-building experience, McAdam had learned that a layer of broken angular stones would act as a solid mass and would not require the large stone layer previously used to build roads. Keeping the surface stones smaller than the tyre width made a good running surface for traffic. The small surface stones also provided low stress on the road, so long as it could be kept reasonably dry.
caption: Photograph of macadam road, c. 1850s, Nicolaus, California
exif: {}