August 1, 101,1 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



S53 



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HENRY C. PEARSON, Editor 



Vol. 48. 



AUGUST I, 1913. 



No. 5 



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table of contents on last page of reading. 



the practicability of rubber pavements. 



T^IIE contt'ni|ilatinii of tlic threat increase in the cnule 

 •*■ rubber sii])|)!y within the next few years invariably 

 prompts the question — what will we do with it? .Vnd 

 the readiest answer to the question seems to be — rubber 

 pavements. 



Any consideraticin of the practicability of rul)ber pave- 

 ments brings us at once to the three examples of this sort 

 of road construction to be found in London, viz., the 

 court yards of the Savoy and Claridge's hotels and the 

 approach and exit of the Euston railway station. These 

 are the noteworthy instances of rubber pavements which 

 have been laid a sufficient lenL;tli of time to afford a prac- 

 tical basis for discussion. Tiie two hotel court yards 

 were paved with rul:)ber, one ten and the other thirteen 

 years ago, the |)rimary oliject being to deaden the clatter 

 of the horses' hoofs and the rumble of the wheels. The 

 pavement was in the form of slabs about Zy^ inches in 

 thickness. These slabs seem to have served their purpose 

 very satisfactorily. They have worn in s])ots to one-half 

 their original thickness, but fmni i)resent aiifiearance give 



promise of several more years of service. To be sure, 

 they have not been subjected to the extreme wear of the 

 heavy trucking on the ordinary roadway, but in one 

 respect their treatment has been unusually severe, for 

 they have had to endure the wear of the constant turning 

 of vehicles. Another trying experience that has come to 

 liiem latlerly has been the use of studded tires. These 

 steel studs are not beneficial to any sort of roadwaj', but 

 on rubber their effect is naturally especially injurious. 

 The oil of the motor car is another foe to rubber roads ; 

 but notwithstanding these unfavorable conditions the 

 rubl)(.'r covering in these London liolel yards has given a 

 good account of itself. 



The case of Euston station ])resents even a stronger 

 arginuent for the possibilities of rubber paving, for part 

 of this paving that is imder the arch through which 

 vehicles depart from the station was laid thirty-two vears 

 ago and, tho worn in some jilaces to an inch and a 

 iialf from an original thickness of two inches, is still 

 serviceable and in no immediate need of relaying. 



Renewed interest in this subject has recently been 

 awakened by a lecture delivered before the Chemical 

 Engineers of London by Ur. Philip Schidrowitz, the well 

 known writer on matters i)ertaining to rubber, lie de- 

 voted much of his paper to the practicability of rubber 

 pavements, going into carefully estimated details regard- 

 ing the initial cost of the pavement, tiie expense of laving 

 it and of its subsetiuent maintenance, biasing his calcula- 

 tions on crude rubber at two shillings per ])ound, and on 

 a composition that sliould be one-third rubber, he es- 

 timates that a ton of paving material would cost £100, as 

 compared with a cost for asjihalt of £2 to £3 and of 

 cement, concrete or stone of £2 to £5. He then compares 

 the cost i)er square yard of rubber pavement with that of 

 the materials now generally in use, and finds that a rubber 

 road sm-face of the jjroper thickness would cost about 

 fourteen times as much as asphalt or macadam and about 

 seven times as much as granite or wood. On the whole, 

 considering its large initial cost. Dr. Schidrowitz doubts 

 tile practicability of the rubber pavement, but, he ob- 

 .serves, in concluding his discussion of the subject, "the 

 question is replete with interest, and in view of its pos- 

 sibly im])ortant bearing on the future of the rubber in- 

 dustry, is at least worthy of a serious experiment." 



Tliis lecture before the London chemists will undoubt- 

 edly be widel}- read. It is a valuable contribution to a 

 highly important discussion. Its figures are the result, 

 we may rest assured, of most careful calculations. The 

 initial cost of rubber roadways on a large scale, even with 



