534 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



nor the grades extreme, is asphalt. It is scarcely necessary to 

 attempt to give a history of the use of this material, how its adapta- 

 bility to paving- purposes was first discovered by the improved con- 

 dition of the roads over which it was hauled from the French mines 

 for use in reservoir and tank linings, etc. The drippings from the 

 carts were observed to have been compacted by travel until a 

 smooth, hard roadway resulted. The first street to be paved with 

 it was Rue Bergera, in Paris, in 1854, and it was so successful that 

 in 1858 Rue St. Honore was similarly treated. An asphalt pave- 

 ment was laid in Threadneedle Street, London, in May, 1869, and 

 in Cheapside and Poultry in the fall of 1870, while in Berlin its 

 use began in 1ST3. 



Eh.iiTiKMii AvKMK, Bh<>(iki.v.n; Macaiiamized Full Width of KoAnwAr and Gltteks 

 PAVED, WITH xo Pkovision kok Surface Dkainage. 



The laying of bituminous pavements in this country began 

 in 1861), and they were first made of tar concrete, or Scrimshaw. 

 Asphalt began to be used within the next year or two, and its 

 popularity has been astonishing, as will be seen from the fact that 

 on January 1, 1898, the area of this kind of pavement laid in the 

 United States was, as nearly as could be ascertained, thirty million 

 square yards. 



There is a notable difference between the European and Ameri- 

 can asphalts. The former may be called natural and the latter arti- 

 ficial pavements. In the former the material, as it comes from the 

 mine, is ground to a powder, heated, placed upon the foundation 

 prepared for it, and tamped into approximately the same condition 



