Streets, roads, thoroughfares. You've got your concrete and your asphalt. Who could ask for anything more? Des Moines, apparently. First came the macadam, in 1882. What is macadam, you ask? While a delicious snack is brought to mind, Webster's defines macadam thusly: "macadamized roadway or pavement especially with a bituminous binder". Ooooooo, that's helpful. OK, macadamize means "to construct or finish (a road) by compacting into a solid mass a layer of small broken stone on a convex well-drained roadbed and using a binder (as cement or asphalt) for the mass". What happened to bituminous? So, to sum up: the first road surfacing in Des Moines consisted of mushed-up stones held together by something mysterious.
I couldn't stand it, I looked up bituminous! It means "impregnated with bitumen". Aaaaah!!! When will I learn to look up the simplest form of the word? When? Bitumen. Oh dear. The definition is a whole paragraph long. I think I'll stick to macadam. More surfaces tomorrow.
Source: Des Moines Register 5/12/1950
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2 comments:
I think that bitumen is just about the same thing as asphalt.
Cute! You make even roadwork interesting!
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