Macadam has no place in a city street, nor is it wise to lay it on the entire width of a roadway. It best serves its purpose when laid in a comparatively narrow strip, leaving the sides of the road unimproved, except for the formation of earth gutters, so that the surface water can readily soak away where the soil is sufficiently porous. Macadam is the most expensive of all street surfaces to keep in thoroughly good condition, and in this country it is rarely, if ever, so maintained, except in some of our park roads. The pavement which is to-day, more generally than any other, superseding stone on all streets where the traffic is not excessive nor the grades extreme, is asphalt. It is scarcely necessary to attempt to give a history of the use of this material, how its adaptability to paving purposes was first discovered by the improved condition of the roads over which it was hauled from the French mines for use in reservoir and tank linings, etc. The drippings from the carts were observed to have been compacted by travel until a smooth, hard roadway resulted. The first street to be paved with it was Rue Bergera, in Paris, in 1854, and it was so successful that in 1858 Rue St. Honore was similarly treated. An asphalt pavement was laid in Threadneedle Street, London, in May, 1869, and in Cheapside and Poultry in the fall of 1870, while in Berlin its use began in 1873. [Illustration: EIGHTEENTH AVENUE, BROOKLYN; MACADAMIZED FULL WIDTH OF ROADWAY AND GUTTERS PAVED, WITH NO PROVISION FOR SURFACE DRAINAGE.] The laying of bituminous pavements in this country began in 1869, and they were first made of tar concrete, or Scrimshaw. Asphalt began to be used within the next year or two, and its popularity has been astonishing, as will be seen from the fact that on January 1, 1898, the area of this kind of pavement laid in the United States was, as nearly as could be ascertained, thirty million square yards.