876 



Popular Science Monthly 



"Once Over" and the Road 

 Is Done 



THERE has been put to work on the 

 roads in the vicinity of Philadel- 

 phia, a new and interesting piece of 

 road-making machinery, which is attract- 

 ing attention because it performs several 

 operations at once. After one passage 



Drainage is essential in road main- 

 tenance, but it is impossible where there 

 is a thick growth of vegetation at the 

 sides of the road. Three trips over the 

 road during the spring and early sum- 

 mer not only place it in good condition, 

 but keep down this vegetation for the 

 entire summer. 



The apparatus will make a 

 roadway thirty feet wide or 

 may be adjusted to one-half 

 that width. While its work 

 is most effective in rejuvenat- 

 ing an old road it may also 

 be used for building new 

 roads in connection with an 

 ordinary tractor-blade grader. 



Two treatments of the roadway during the season 

 keep it in excellent condition 



over a poorly-built or worn-out piece of 

 roadway, the surface has been planed, 

 scarified, rolled and left in good condi- 

 tion for use. The "once-over" is all 

 that is necessary at the time. If a 

 roadway is treated by this machine two 

 or three times at interv^als 

 during the early part of the 

 season it is in reasonably 

 good shape for months of 

 service. 



The machine, necessarily 

 heavy, weighs about eighteen 

 thousand pounds. It is drawn 

 by a traction engine of from 

 twenty-five to forty horse- 

 power, according to the char- 

 acter of the work to be 

 performed. There are two 

 low-hanging blades on either 

 side; as the machine passes 

 along, these scrape off the surface 

 of the road at the sides, bringing the 

 loose earth to the center. The scarifier 

 cuts off the hummocks in the center of 

 the grade, which is then packed down 

 hard by the action of the roller. A 

 feature of the roller's work is that the 

 crown of the road is as nicely rounded 

 as if done by hand. 



Some Record Dredging at 

 Panama 



THE Cascadas, the largest 

 all-steel dredge in the 

 world, which made three new 

 high records for dredging in 

 the Culebra Cut at Panama, 

 can remove thirty-five thousand tons 

 of material with ease every working day 

 of twenty-four hours. The heaviest 

 train ever hauled by one locomotive, 

 from Baltimore to Philadelphia, con- 

 sisted of fiftv-five cars with four thou- 



A traction engine pulls the machine which performs 

 the three functions of scraping, cutting and rolling 



sand four hundred and one tons of coal. 

 The output of the Cascadas on one day, 

 however, weighs more than the contents 

 of eight such trains. Furthermore the 

 Cascadas is an ail-American product, de- 

 signed, constructed and erected in this 

 country by a company which is the larg- 

 est manufacturer of its kind in the 

 world. 



