Solid Bitumens, Their Physical and Chemical Properties and Chemical Analysis - Together With a Treatise on the Chemical Technology of Bituminous Pavements #266788

This book has been written at the request of several friends. I began experimenting on bitumens while a student in Brown University in 1859. Interrupted by the Civil War, I again took up the work on the Pacific Coast in 1865 and it has been prosecuted almost continually until the present time, a period of forty years. Happy in the personal friendship of C. M. Warren, in whose laboratory I spent several months, I have used nearly every method of investigation that has been proposed in the United States and Europe, and have read nearly everything that has been published relating to bitumens from Boussingault's Memoir to the present time. It would be strange, if, with such experience, I had not learned much that might be useful to my fellow men. This is my apology for offering a work on solid Bitumens.<br><br>The word Asphalt has become so hackneyed through misuse, that I have avoided its use wherever possible.<br><br>While the work represents much of personal experience, my aim has been to offer everything of value relating to the subject, giving full justice to all, whether they agree with me or not. If anything essential has been omitted, it is done through inadvertence, without intention. So far as has been possible, reference has been made to original memoirs. I am aware that there may be instances in which I have not met the originals, in which case the wrong reference is accidental.<br><br>With these few words of explanation and apology, I dedicate my work to my fellow laborers in a field of vast extent and intricate paths, the boundaries of which no man living will discover.