En Samling Afhandlinger Om Veje 1876-1881

OUR ROADWAYS. 5 The requisites for a good pavement may be briefly set down as follows:— 1. It must be safe. 2. It must be durable. 3. It must be cleanly. 4. It must not, in a city, be noisy. And, 5. It must be such as can be readily and quickly- laid down and repaired. We will now consider the various modes of paving in use, and note how far they fulfil the requisite conditions of a good roadway. First, we have the archaic system, introduced into this country by the Romans, of paving with blocks of stone. A system which has been in use for more than two thousand years can scarcely be of itself a bad one, and, were it not that it fails in one most important requisite, there would be even yet little prospect of our seeing it superseded. It is, when constructed of the most enduring material (Aberdeen granite), an expensive pavement to lay down; but, so great is its endurance, that it is the cheapest of all pave- ments as yet known. It is moreover, under favour- able circumstances, a fairly safe pavement, but an intolerable nuisance in any great thoroughfare, from the incessant din and clatter arising from the wheels of carriages and the iron shoes of horses. And there is another point not always taken into account in con- sidering the merits of granite pavement, namely, that though it may call for less money than some