THE STREET PAVING QUESTION. 631 
flows quickly off the surface and down the gutters to sewer inlets. There is, 
consequently, much less liability of the water working into the interstices than 
is the case in a wooden pavement as commonly laid on boards, or imperfect 
foundations. This ordinarily wears in flat places and depressions which re- 
tain the surface water and produce not only more rapid decay of the wood but 
aid in its general destruction, besides being very objectionable from a sanitary 
point of view. 
Under all the circumstances I question the advisability of spending more 
money between the blocks. I think that the principal improvement of the pre- 
sent methods and materials is in the line of improved wearing surface. The 
round, white cedar block combines more good qualities for the money than any 
wood at present available. I should prefer, generally, a rectangular-shaped 
block. This is not obtainable in white cedar, and would be about fifty per cent 
more costly if of any other suitable wood, according to the best of my present 
information. 
It is not improbable that we may get an oak or a pine from the new 
Memphis R. R. that will be suitable in quality, and can be delivered sawn up 
into blocks at a cost which would make it advisable to use it. 
The cedar block is now being tested here under entirely new, and more 
favorable conditions than it has . ever been before, and the experience of other 
cities afford, to my judgment, but very little information as to its durability as 
laid here. It is mainly from the actual results to be obtained here, in the prac- 
tical test of wear and time, that a really satisfactory answer can be obtained to 
the question of how far is it advisable to go in the matter of first cost for a 
wooden wearing surface for street pavements in this city. 
On the general subject I will only now say that in considering the questions 
involved, and endeavormg to reconcile and understand the accumulated exper- 
ience of all cities in this matter, it is, in my opinion, primarily essential, in order 
to arrive at a correct conclusion, to divide the pavement into two parts — the 
foundation and the wearing surface. This division simplifies the subject in a 
natural way ; affords an easy explanation of many apparent inconsistencies, and 
aids very materially in extracting the grain of instruction contained in all failures 
and successes with street pavements. 
THE STREET PAVING QUESTION. 
COL. R. T. VAN HORN. 
Washington, Jan. 4. — I am in receipt of the Kansas City Review for Jan- 
uary, and find in it two very important papers — one by Engineer Chanute on 
the sewerage question as applied to our city, and the other by the editor, Col. 
Case, on pavements, which ought to be read by every tax-payer. My own views 
upon these questions are well known to some of our people, and it is not my 
