英语词汇macadam的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

macadam; tarmac. Perhaps the smooth, perfectly drained miniature stone roads that John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836) built in his father’s garden as a child inspired the first macadam roads, but his system seems to have been the improved version of an older French model. McAdam, a Scotsman whose name is also spelt Macadam and MacAdam, began experimenting in road-building at his own expense at Ayrshire and then at Fal- mouth, where he had moved in 1798, and his persistent efforts finally got him appointed as surveyor for all Bristol roads in 1815. McAdam had discovered that an expensive French road- building method invented 20 years before his first experiments offered the best solution to the problem of drainage. The roads he began to build were layers of small, sharp-angled, broken stones placed over a drained, gently sloping roadbed, each layer compacted by the traffic that passed over it, and with water running off into ditches on each side. McAdam’s roads revolu- tionized transportation, gradually replacing the common dirt road, and in 1827 he was made general surveyor for all high- ways in England. But his method was improved just as surely as he had improved on the French method. Subsequently his stone layers were crushed into the earth with heavy rollers and their surface coated with a bituminous covering, and these blacktop roads came to be called macadam or tarmac (a short- ening of “tar” and “macadam”) roads.

词汇	macadam
词源	macadam; tarmac. Perhaps the smooth, perfectly drained miniature stone roads that John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836) built in his father’s garden as a child inspired the first macadam roads, but his system seems to have been the improved version of an older French model. McAdam, a Scotsman whose name is also spelt Macadam and MacAdam, began experimenting in road-building at his own expense at Ayrshire and then at Fal- mouth, where he had moved in 1798, and his persistent efforts finally got him appointed as surveyor for all Bristol roads in 1815. McAdam had discovered that an expensive French road- building method invented 20 years before his first experiments offered the best solution to the problem of drainage. The roads he began to build were layers of small, sharp-angled, broken stones placed over a drained, gently sloping roadbed, each layer compacted by the traffic that passed over it, and with water running off into ditches on each side. McAdam’s roads revolu- tionized transportation, gradually replacing the common dirt road, and in 1827 he was made general surveyor for all high- ways in England. But his method was improved just as surely as he had improved on the French method. Subsequently his stone layers were crushed into the earth with heavy rollers and their surface coated with a bituminous covering, and these blacktop roads came to be called macadam or tarmac (a short- ening of “tar” and “macadam”) roads.
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