Improvements in Pavements.
Year: 1894

page_text: Date of Application, 7th Sept., 1894-Accepted, 20th Oct., 1894
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Pavements.
We, JOSEPH HAY AMIES, Inventor, and JAMES UNDERHILL ROBERTSON,
Patent Attorney, both of 1220, Filbert Street, in the City of Philadelphia, and
State of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. do hereby declare the nature of this invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following statement :-
Our invention has for its object the manufacture of paving material, the
construction and laying down of street pavements and the making of improved
country roads, which possess the desirable features of being more or less elastic,
practically noiseless and dustless, and exceedingly durable. The principal materials
at present in use for pavements are asphalt, granite blocks, wood, bricks and stones.
The three first named are most commonly used when pavements are laid down in
cities and towns. There are faults and defects in each which are well known and
admitted by all who have any knowledge of the subject. Asphalt is very expensive,
and it requires constant mending and repairs. While furnishing a fine smooth
surface for the wheels of vehicles it is very severe on the horses, because it provides
no foothold for them. Granite blocks certainly make a durable pavement when
they have been properly laid, but traffic over them is noisy, and where other
pavements are possible they are avoided. Wooden blocks make a very desirable
pavement, but they soon decay, and when they approach that condition must be
removed for they cannot be repaired. What is required is a pavement combining
the elasticity of the wooden block with the durability of the stone; one that will
not rot, and which will mend itself by the accumulation and incorporation with
itself of the dust, sand and mud which may fall upon it. In country places in
different parts of the world excellent roads have been made by throwing blocks of
bog peat upon the muddy roadway, where it has, under the traffic, been pressed
and wrought into a fine, firm and durable pavement, one which is elastic, and
which, on that account, mends itself. Straw, reeds, corn stalks, and other vegetable
matter, have also been used in the same manner as the peat with the same result.
But this method is crude, and the vegetable substances used have not been treated
to preserve them against decay.
We attain our object mainly in the following manner, namely:-We take any
fibrous materials, such as hay, straw, weeds, reeds, and grasses, or we take peat,
especially such as is largely composed of long roots and fibres, or we take turf,
and we compress them by means of a suitable power press into blocks or bales of
any desired dimensions. When we deal with peat or turf we cut large blocks out
of the bog or soil several times larger than the size to which they are to be
reduced, and in the act of compression the greater proportion of the moisture is
expressed, so that the said blocks become virtually dry. While the said blocks
are in the press we bind them with wire, thin iron straps, or other suitable material,
in the same manner as bales of hay are bound, in order that when they are removed
from the press they may not again expand, yet be at the same time more or less
elastic. Or we compress said blocks into moulds in which they remain until they
are dry and set to the shape required. In this latter case they may not require
any binding or tying. In dealing with hay, straw, grasses, reeds, and such like
long fibres, care is taken, when putting them into the press, to arrange them that
they will lie substantially in parallel lines, corresponding as nearly as possible to
the grain in wood, in order that when they are compressed they may be compact
and firm. Continuous lengths of such vegetable fibres may be fed into a press
especially constructed for the purpose, and when compressed to the desired

page_text: The
dimensions, bound or tied with proper binders at equal distances apart; then cut
across the grain parallel with said binders by a saw or heavy blade into the
required thickness, so making blocks. The preferable shape of these blocks upon
the face is that of a parallelogram; their depth or thickness may vary.
object of this cutting across the grain is to secure as many cross sections as
possible, for the preferable manner in which said blocks are laid upon the street is
with the grain end upward. When laid in this manner any expansion which may
occur, is lateral, or horizontal, and not vertical, and the interstices between the
blocks allow of such expansion without causing any heaving or derangement of the
surface of the pavement. Besides with the grain end uppermost the best wearing
surface is presented to the traffic, and in addition, whatever yielding there is of the
fibres it causes them to absorb and incorporate all mineral matter which may be
pressed into them by the traffic.
After the said blocks are formed in the press they are removed and may be
submerged into hot coal-tar, or kidney oil, or a mixture of the two, creosote oil
and the like, or into any other substance or composition, having the properties of
sealing them against the invasion of moisture and air; or they may be used in a
dry condition without such treatment. In this hot liquor they remain until it has
penetrated them to any desirable depth, saturating them fully if need be, when
they are removed and allowed to dry. This treatment is for the purpose of
securing them against decay. Blocks so formed and treated possess a large
amount of elasticity and when kidney-oil enters into the composition with which
they have been encased or enveloped by saturation they are protected against
decay for many years. Kidney-oil being a fixed or non-drying oil prevents the
composition from drying or cracking under ordinary conditions of temperature and
traffic. On that account it permits of the absorption and incorporation with the
vegetable fibres of the dust, sand and mud which may fall upon the pavement,
while it absolutely excludes all moisture. We deal with the blocks in the manner
stated when they are to be covered with fine gravel, sand and other loose mineral
matter, or with a layer or sheet of concrete, after they have been laid in position
in the same manner as granite blocks are laid upon a properly prepared base upon
the street.
But when they are to be used without any such top covering, we submerge said
blocks into a composition of the following materials, namely:-Kidney-oil one
gallon; coal-tar, petroleum tar or bitumen five gallons; sand or pulverized lime
rock three pounds; hydraulic cement three pounds. These proportions may be
varied without departing from the character or spirit of our invention. Or the
above composition may be mixed with fine fibres cut into pieces. When our blocks
are so prepared they possess a fine finish, which is durable because it will not
crack, and which enables the street to be cleaned in the same manner as ordinary
pavements are now cleaned. When said blocks are prepared in the manner last
named, they may be laid upon a proper base on the street as closely together as
possible, and the interstices may be filled with boiling pitch and kidney oil mixed,
or with any other suitable material having the property of being impervious to
moisture.
We may also form our blocks by mingling with the vegetable fibre when same is
in the press a quantity of resinous matter, which, being viscid, causes said fibre to
be firmly concreted together and formed into blocks ready for use without further
preparation. By this method of manufacture the binding wire may be dispensed
with. Blocks so formed are as a rule of a denser character than those which are
first compressed before any resinous composition is added to them, and they are
less elastic than those made with a heart of dry fibre, as described in the fore-
going.
Heretofore we have dealt only with the formation of paving blocks out of the
materials named, but it is evident that we may also construct pavements out of the
same into sheets or large masses of plastic composition, without moulding or
forming it into blocks. And that the same may be prepared at the place where the

page_text: pavement is to be laid, and the material so prepared may be laid down in a plastic
condition and there tamped and rolled and pressed until it becomes one compact
and concrete pavement from curbstone to curbstone. We will now describe the
manner in which this may be done.
We first compound a gummy composition, having the qualities of a fixed or
non-drying oil. Said composition consists of kidney-oil one sixth part, rosin two
sixths parts, and pitch with petroleum tar three sixths parts, boiled together in a
proper vessel.
When it cools it should be a sticky mass. If it is hard and not
sticky then more kidney-oil is to be added until the proper consistency is obtained.
Having obtained the proper condition of said gum we melt it until it becomes a thin
penetrating liquor, when we add, in the relative proportions of one gallon of the
resinous liquid to about one half of one cubic foot of fibre, fibrous substances, such
as hay, straw, wire grass, reeds, briars, weeds, leaves and such like. When the
whole has been sufficiently saturated with the resinous liquor we mingle with
the mass powdered peat, ground clay, rock, gravel, sand, and cement, until the
composition assumes the consistency desired for a pavement. We then lay said
composition down upon the roadway, having first properly prepared the same, in a
sheet of whatever thickness may be wanted, and we press and mould it into shape
by steam or other rollers, or in any other manner equally effective. Upon the
face of the same we sprinkle fine sand to absorb whatever gum or resin may be
found there.
Kidney-oil is a term used among the rosin oil distillers.
When the gum
turpentine flows from the pitch pine tree it is distilled, and the result is spirits of
turpentine and rosin. When the rosin is further distilled the result is rosin oil, or
grease oil, and soft pitch. Boil rosin oil and the result is kidney-oil. The kidney-
oil which we use is a thick slowly flowing oil, of the color of amber. We find by
actual experiment that the foregoing combination of kidney-oil, rosin, and pitch
produces a gum which does not become hard and brittle, but maintains the elastic,
springy, and tenacious condition under all usual temperatures, and it does not dry
nor crumble in its application to the fibres named, but it binds them against decay.
Rosin, rosin oil, pine tar, and pitch have heretofore been used in the construction of
pavements in combination with coal-tar, bitumen, asphalt, and other mineral
matters, including broken stone, gravel, and sand, but, as far as our knowledge
goes, never in combination with vegetable fibres, peat or turf, for that purpose.
Moreover we use in addition what is known as kidney-oil, which, as stated in
the foregoing, is rosin oil boiled. By this process all or nearly all volatile
matters have been expelled, and the residuum is a non-drying, oily gum.
We do
not claim any invention by the use of the wire or other binders mentioned
herein.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what we
claim is :-
First. Paving blocks composed of bog peat or turf or vegetable fibres, compressed
and held in proper shape, and enveloped and more or less penetrated by any resinous
composition impervious to moisture substantially as described.
Second. Paving blocks of vegetable fibre and resinous matter combined, the
whole being compressed together into suitable shape substantially as described.
Third. Paving blocks composed of a heart of vegetable fibres, compacted
together under suitable pressure and held in shape by proper binders, surrounded
and penetrated by an envelope, composed of kidney-oil. coal-tar or bitumen, sand
or pulverized lime rock, and hydraulic cement, substantially as set forth and
described.
Fourth. A plastic pavement composed of vegetable fibres saturated with a
resinous composition and filled with powdered peat, cement, and mineral matter
ground fine, the whole being compacted together under suitable pressure, substan-
tially as described.

page_text: Fifth. In the manufacture of pavements, composed in part of vegetable
substances, a resinous composition, having the qualities of a fixed or non-drying oil,
consisting of soft pitch, kidney-oil, and rosin, in about the proportions specified
herein, as treated in the manner substantially as described.
Dated this Twenty-third day of August 1894.
JOS. H. AMIES.
JAS. U. ROBERTSON.
W. P. Thompson & Boult,
Agents for the Applicants.