In building sidewalks care must be taken to secure an unyielding, well-drained foundation, in order to prevent uneven settlement, cracks, or breaks. Boards or planks are generally laid crosswise of the walk, on longitudinal string-pieces, or timbers, designed to keep the boards off the ground and postpone the inevitable decay. On account of this decay, wooden sidewalks are, in the long run, decidedly uneconomical. Curbstones are from four to six inches thick and deep enough to form the necessary rise above the gutter and to extend into the earth sufficiently to give a firm foundation. They are often set on broken stone, to insure good drainage, or on concrete, to give a solid foundation. They may be of stone or of concrete. Where concrete is used it sometimes extends so as to form the gutter as well, and has the upper and outer edge of the curb protected with an iron bar or rod, imbedded in the concrete.
See Boulevards; Electric Lighting; Electric Railways; Street Railway; Gas; Heating and Ventilation (paragraph Central Heating Plants); Pavement; Road and Street Machinery; Road; Sewerage and Drainage; Subways for Pipes and Wires; Water-Works; etc.
STREET, Alfred Billings (1811-81). An American author, born at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. He studied law and began practice at Monticello, N. Y., but in 1839 removed to Albany, where he became editor of The Northern Light, and was, for the latter half of his life, State librarian. His poems deal with the sights and sounds of the woodland and the life of the more primitive days of the settlement of America. Among his verses are: The Burning of Schenectady, and Other Poems (1842); Drawings and Tintings (1844); Fugitive Poems (1846); and Frontenac; or, the Atotarho of the Iroquois (1849), a poetical romance. His chief prose works are: Woods and Waters (1860); The Indian Pass (1869); Lake and Mountain; or, Autumn in the Adirondacks (1870); Eagle Pine; or, Sketches of a New York Frontier Village (1871); and one learned work, A Digest of Taxation in the United States (1863).
STREET, George Edmund (1824-81). An English architect. He studied under Gilbert Scott, from whom he got his partiality for the Gothic style and his talent in restoring mediæval monuments. Among his principal buildings are the theological college at Cuddesden, and the churches of Saint Philip and Saint James, at Oxford, of Saint Margaret, at Liverpool, and many well-designed minor churches. Among his restorations are the cathedrals of York, Bristol, and Carlisle, Jesus College Chapel, Oxford, and Wantage church. Among his writings are The Brick and Marble Architecture of North Italy in the Middle Ages (1855), and Gothic Architecture in Spain (1865), which are classics in their fields.
STREET RAILWAY. A railway laid upon the public streets of a city or a town, and intended principally for the transportation of passengers. The street railway had its origin in the early tramways of Great Britain (see Railways), and such roads are still denominated tramways in all European countries. The street railway for passenger traffic is however, distinctly an American development, and the modern passenger tramways of Europe owe their inception to the United States. A street railway was operated in New York City in 1831-32, on which a horse car, much like an old English stage coach in construction, ran from Prince Street on the Bowery to Yorkville and Harlem, following for some distance the route now occupied by the Fourth Avenue Railway, which still operates under the original charter granted in 1831. The road was known as the New York and Harlem Railroad, and it continued in operation as a horse-car line until 1837, when it was temporarily changed to a steam-car line. In 1845 the operation of the horse cars on the railway line was resumed, and it remained the only horse-car line in New York until 1852, when charters were granted for the Second, Third, Sixth, and Eighth Avenue lines. Street railways were first built in Boston, Mass., in 1856, Philadelphia, Pa., had its first line in 1857. The street railway was introduced into England in 1860 through the efforts of George Francis Train, the first line being started in Birkenhead opposite Liverpool. Roads were laid in Liverpool in 1868, in London in 1869-71, and afterwards in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dublin. A recent authority (Dumont, Automobiles sur rails, 1898) says that the first horse tramway in France was built in 1856 on a line extending from Paris to Saint-Cloud, and was called the ‘American’ railway; but that the first horse-car line in Paris itself was not built until 1875. Street railway enterprises began to be taken up by the South American countries in 1866.
The street railway rail of 1832 was a wrought-iron bar about 5 inches wide, with a groove from 1¾ inches to 2¼ inches wide and from 1 inch to 1½ inches deep, for the wheel flange. The wide and deep groove in this rail gave trouble by catching the wheel tires of ordinary vehicles and wrenching them. To remedy this fault the step rail was adopted. This consisted of a flat bar having a flat surface from 3 inches to 5 inches wide flanked by a ridge or tread about 1 inch high and 1¾ inches wide. This form of rail came into extensive use, especially in America. Another form of step rail had the tread in the centre flanked by a flat surface on each side. The next development was a return to the grooved rail, but with the groove wedge-shaped and narrow. These early forms of rails were simply iron bars spiked to the tops of longitudinal timbers. This timber was replaced by metal longitudinals, chairs, and supports of various sorts as experience suggested improvements, until finally the attempt of trying to maintain the tread or wearing surface of the rail separate from the supporting body was abandoned and the modern girder rail was originated. The girder rail consists of a base and web like the ordinary T-rail for railways, but has a wide grooved head. With the advent of the girder rail the former difficulty of insecure and uneven joints was largely decreased and at the same time a rail was developed which gave the necessary stiffness for carrying the rapidly increasing weights of cars which were made possible by the development of mechanical propulsion. The construction of modern street railway tracks is more fully described in the article on Electric Railways.
The success of the first street railways established, inventors and engineers turned their attention to devising means of mechanical propul-
