Observations on Limes, Calcareous Cements, Mortars, Stuccos and Concrete, and on Puzzolanas, Natural and Artificial - Together With Rules Deduced From Numerous Experiments for Making an Artificial Water Cement, Equal in Efficiency to t... #233359

The first sheets of the present work were sent to press in May 1836, so that the unusual period of nearly two years and a half has elapsed between the commencement and the completion of printing it. This was owing to new questions concerning the properties of cements continually suggesting themselves, seldom occupying less than a fortnight and sometimes three months or even more, before they could be properly decided; besides which time was repeatedly lost by unforeseen failures in our apparatus, which required not only the defective parts of the wood or iron work to be replaced, but sometimes also spoiled the cements, that were to be experimented upon, the replacing of which, if artificial, was a work of time. During this period also, as our views became more enlarged, the common modes of experimenting on the comparative strength of cements and mortars, which we had at first adopted, appeared to be unsatisfactory, so that in addition to these, we had recourse to a new method for ascertaining their comparative adhesiveness to bricks and stones, which is in fact their most important property, but to which little or no attention had been paid by former writers. This also was of course a cause of delay.