Oil, it's for roads

 Brookville Democrat April 13, 1011

ROADS WITH OIL

Methods Which Will Give Fair Results

PREPARATION OF SUBGRADE

Same care should be taken with this as with a Macadam Road -- the greater part of work can be done with a traction machine in preparing the road for treatment.

The oiled earth road is still in its experimental stage, and it will have to be given considerably more study before it can be expected to give uniformly good results under all the varied conditions of soil and the available oils.

Different methods of construction have been followed in different states, but there seems to be only one practical method of construction which is giving fairly uniform results. This method is as follows:

A shoulder furrow is plowed on each side of the center of the roadway, making the width to be treated from sixteen to eighteen feet, and the loose earth graded outside of tis width unless the crown of the road is too steep, in which case it should be plowed and this material thrown out to the sides.

Plowing only the shoulders renders it easy to shape the subgrade with a crown of about one inch to the foot.

The grade of oil to be used is much more important than the kind of soil. Light oils and those having a paraffin base are a little better than so much water. The oil should be one having an asphalt base of at least 85 per cent. 

It should be free from paraffin and all lighter oil. The oil should be applied to the road at a temperature of not less than 250 degrees F. and an oil containing 85 per cent of asphalt will have to be heated before it cn be taken from the car.

After applying the first course of oil sufficient earth should be grade on to absorb the oil. On a 2-1/2 gallon treatment to the square yard, four inches of loose earth should be graded in and then be thoroughly soaked with water and the tamping process begun.

The greater part of the work can be done with a traction engine and a road machine. The earth can be drawn back either by a road machine or road leveler. 

There is very little danger of using too much water. The wetter the materials, the more thoroughly the oil and earth can be mixed.

NOTE: Macadam roads were the Taj Mahal of roads in an era when people had to ask the township if they could get "free" gravel.

Macadam is an angular aggregate of stone used for paving without any binding medium to hold the stones together. The macadamized road consisted of multiple layers of crushed stone: the largest stones at the bottom, then another layer of fist-sized stones, with a top layer of small stones. Asphalt was just tar that held it all together. That came later.