Hotchkiss Cannon & London's Wooden Block Roads:

My old pommy mate Mick (well .. he's one day younger than me - but there you go) was reminiscing by e-mail about the time when road workers dug-up the Kilburn High Road / Edgeware Rd. in London and the lads were selling-off the coal-tar creosoted timber blocks to the locals for firewood.

- We were actually recalling the Great London Smog of 1952 - when we were 8 years old - that brought transport to a crawl over many days and is blamed for thousands of deaths from respiratory disease .. anyway - remembering another good mate's advice that "Google is your friend."  I found a quality blog page that answered all my questions about London's roads being paved (not with gold) but with hardwood blocks in the 1860-1870s.

 I reckon that it might have been around 1954-55 when the navvies were making cash by selling-off the lifted old A5 'Watling Street' wood blocks for the Kilburn locals open fires .. probably at sixpence for a dozen.

http://roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/wood/

- However - one of the entrepreneurs who developed his own system and business for paving the city roads of Paris and London with wooden blocks was American Benjamin Berkeley HOTCHKISS who had worked for both Colts and Winchester before moving to Paris to make and sell his hand-cranked 37 mm CANNON (That's a 1.5 inch caliber) to the warlike Europeans.

 Australian Jarrah and Karri Eucalyptus Hardwood Proved To Be the Best Roading Timber.

Five Barrel Hotchkiss Cannon Business End.

A Hotchkiss in GERMAN East Africa.

The early Hotchkiss Cannon of 1872 was hand cranked to fire 68 rounds per minute superficially much like the Gatling Gun .. but very different internally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotchkiss_gun


http://oldbritishguns.com/the-37mm-hotchkiss-revolving-cannon

Hotchkiss formed two road building companies as well as his French gun making plant .. Mr Hotchkiss (1826-85) was a bearded bigamist who obviously had an active brain and an eye for a buck, - His company Hotchkiss et Cie continued making guns through two world wars - and Hotchkiss cars were built from 1903 into the 1950s - trucks etc into the 1970s ..

1931 Hotchkiss.

Marty K.