TRINIDAD AND BERMUDEZ ASPHALTS 



181 



A sheet asphalt pavement was laid in 1879 of Trinidad asphalt, on 

 Vermont Avenue in Washington, between H and I Streets. This pave- 

 ment is still in existence, and during that period has cost only in the 

 neighborhood of ten cents a square yard, for maintenance for the entire 

 period. It is apparently good to-day for ten or fifteen years more. 

 This street is one of very moderate travel, delivery wagons and pleas- 

 ure vehicles, and being very broad, over 100 feet, this is well distributed 

 The pavement is typical of what Trinidad asphalt will do under such 

 conditions for a long period of time. 



Another striking piece of Trinidad sheet asphalt pavement is that on 

 Fifth Avenue in New JTc-rk, between 10th and 59th Streets. This was 

 laid under the personal direction of the writer in 1896 and 1897, and has 



Victoeia Embankment, London. Paved with Trinidad Lake Aspnalt in 1906. 



withstood the very heavy travel which Fifth Avenue carried in a most 

 satisfactory way for fifteen years, the number of vehicles passing any 

 one point, when the travel is the greatest, being at the rate of as high 

 as 14,000 in ten hours. No other smooth surface pavement in any 

 country has withstood the conditions existing on Fifth Avenue with an 

 equally satisfactory result. 



The third type of Trinidad sheet asphalt pavement is that found on 

 the Victoria-Thames Embankment in London, the first portion of which 

 was put down by the writer in 1906, upon old macadam and a course 

 of Trinidad asphalt concrete. Much the larger portion of the embank- 

 ment has since that time been paved with this same form of construc- 

 tion, other forms having been removed in the meantime as unsatisfac- 

 tory and replaced by it. The surface of the Embankment is rarely dry 

 from November to April, and it carries the very large traffic which pro- 



