TARRED MACADAM

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 18, 22 January 1913, Page 3

TARRED MACADAM

(fur irfiGEOsAra—spiCfAt. to ran tost.) 1 CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Excavations in a Christchurch street frave 'revealed the success of a tarred macadam thoroughfare, which has not only stood the test ■of tifflej but has giveh indisputable evidence pi its solidity/ In HerefOrd-street,; at the junction with High-street,- the city authorities have been making excavations to carry a conduit ■'Over the- roSd, and the workmen have found that the roadway is" difficult to-pierce. It was laid doWn , some.years ago, tarred' macadam being, ■used, and later' more tarred macadam was placed H on top of the first construction.' L Over this was placed a film of asphalt. The tarred macadam is nine inches in depth, and, with .the traffic th*t-has gone across, it during the years, it' t has been pressed into a solid mass, aa strbng,ajmos^s concrete.* A reporter* aaw the work o? excavation on Monday.' and discovered that the* workmen'had found it impossible to break up the mass with 1 picks. New* picks' were' used on tfce' jdb, but they-penetrated'the softer asphalt covering only; the-tarred niacadam'resisted; the^ efforts of the picka> and the nienhad'to gouge tfteir away through it. It-Wasvseeri, too, that the secodd lawyer of- tarred macadam'had welded-on to the first'perfectly, and that th© whbleVwas a concrete ma's*!. Speaking to a reporter, the "City- En< gineer ~Baid( that the excavation proved the'worth of tarred macadam.. It would be oodsible to lay-down construction 1 on similar 1 lines, ■ though not with as.much as nine inches of metal, for about 2s 3di per. superficial yard. He also referred to the roadway opposite the Council Chambers in Oxford-terrace, which has stood for. twelve months under heavy traffic, including traction engines ' The sdrfaee of the road-had held up without showing any weakness, he'said, and had proved itself under a severe, test.; Tarred macadam in Christchurch .had Succeeded, and the experience in Hereford-street, in which the traffic was' fairly heavy, should convince, people-of the possibility^ of the method of construction. ,