Macadam
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Macadam is a type of road construction pioneered by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam c. 1820, in which crushed stone is placed in shallow, convex layers and compacted thoroughly. A binding layer o
An illustration of the first macadamized road in the United States between Boonsboro and Hagerstown in Maryland in 1823; in the foreground, workers are breaking stones "so as not to exceed 6 ounces [170 g] in weight or to pass a two-inch [5 cm] ring".
Laying Telford paving in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania, in 1908
John Loudon McAdam
A macadam road in Nicolaus, California, c. 1850s
Tarmacadam
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Tarmacadam or tarmac is a road surfacing material made by combining tar and macadam, patented by Welsh inventor Edgar Purnell Hooley in 1902. It is a more durable and dust-free enhancement of simple c
Macadam
…of using tar from Monaco's gasworks for binding the dust. Later a mixture of coal tar and construction aggregate, patented by Edgar Purnell Hooley as tarmac, was introduced. A more durable road surface (modern mixed asphalt pavement), sometimes referred to in the U.S. as blacktop, was introduced in the…
Workers tarring a road in London during World War I
Kabul Kandahar Highway in 2003