Home › Chemical Receipts › Macadamized Roads

Macadamized Roads

Stone is to be procured in some form in almost every part of the country, and a road made of small broken stone to the depth of 10 inches, will be smooth, solid, and durable.

The size of stones for a road should be about that of a hen's egg. It must be in due proportion to the space occupied by a wheel of ordinary dimensions on a smooth level surface; this point of contact will be found to be longitudinally, about 1 inch; and every piece of stone put into a road, which exceeds 1 inch in any of its dimensions, is mischievous.

In repairing an old road no addition of materials is to be brought upon it, unless in any part it be found that there is not a quantity of clean stone equal to 10 inches in thickness.

The stone already in the road is to be loosened a rise of 3 inches from the centre to the side is sufficient for a road 30 feet wide. The stones when loosened in the road are to be gathered off by means of a strong heavy rake to the side of the road, and there broken.

When the large stones have been removed, the road is to be put in shape, and a rake employed to smooth the surface.

When the road is so prepared, the stones that have been broken by the side of the road are then to be carefully spread on it - not to be laid on it in shovelsful, but scattered over the surface, one shovelful following another, and spreading over a considerable space.

When additional stone is wanted on a road that has consolidated by use, the old hardened surface of the road is to be loosened with a pick, in order to make the fresh materials unite with the old.

Every road is to be made of broken stone, without mixture of earth, clay, chalk, or any other matter that will imbibe water and be affected with frost; nothing is to be laid on the clean stone on pretence of binding; broken stone will combine by its own angles into a smooth solid surface that cannot be affected by vicissitudes of weather, or displaced by the action of wheels, which will pass over without a jolt, and consequently without injury. Flint makes an excellent road, if due attention be paid to the size; but, from want of that attention, many of the flint roads are rough, loose, and expensive.

Limestone, when properly prepared and applied, makes a smooth, solid road, and becomes consolidated sooner than any other material; but from its nature is not the most lasting.

To Manage Water-pipes in Winter.

When the frost begins to set in, cover the water-pipes with hay or straw bands, twisted tight round them. Let the cisterns and water-butts be washed out occasionally; this will keep the water pure and fresh.

In pumping up water into the cistern for the water-closet, be very particular, in winter time.

Let all the water be let out of the pipe when done; but if this is forgotten, and it should be frozen, be frozen, take a small gimblet and bore a hole in the pipe, a little distance from the place where it is let off, which will prevent its bursting. Put a peg into the hole when the water is let off.

To make an Æolian Harp.

Of very thin cedar, pine, or other soft wood make a box 5 or 6 inches deep, 7 or 8 inches wide, and of a length just equal to the width of the window in which it is to be placed. Across the top, near each end, glue a strip of wood half an inch high and a quarter of an inch thick, for bridges.

Into the ends of the box insert wooden pins, like those of a violin, to wind the strings around, two pins in each end. Make a sound-hole in the middle of the top, and string the box with small catgut, or blue first-fiddle strings. Fastening one end of each string to a metallic pin in one end of the box, and, carrying it over the bridges, wind it around the turning-pin in the opposite end of the box. The ends of the box should be increased in thickness where the wooden pins enter, by a piece of wood glued upon the inside. Tune the strings in unison and place the box in the window. It is better to have four strings, as described, but a harp with a single string produces an exceedingly sweet melody of notes, which vary with the force of the wind.