take this opportunity, however, to express his obligation to them, one and
all, and to thank them for information given and kindnesses rendered.
He is especially indebted to Mr. Robert W. Lesley, President of the Asso-
ciation of Portland Cement Manufacturers, for copies of his "History of
the Portland Cement Industry in the United States," and other articles
upon cement, and for a carefully compiled list of the novel or new uses in
which cement has been employed within the last two years.
The files of the Engineering News, Engineering Record, and Munici-
pal Engineering have all been of great value in furnishing a fund of infor-
mation, while the publishers of these magazines have been doubly kind
in furnishing many cuts to aid in illustrating the subject in hand.
To Mr. Chas. C. Brown, editor of Municipal Engineering, I wish to
express my thanks for personally giving me much valuable information
and for the information obtained through his book entitled the "Directory
of American Cement Industries."
To the following firms and individuals who have given information
and furnished cuts for use in illustrating the text, the writer is greatly
indebted and wishes here to thank them for their courtesy and to publicly
acknowledge their assistance :
Allis-Chalmers Company, Milwaukee, Wis.
Austin Manufacturing Company, Chicago, 111.
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14 ANNUAL REFORT
Earle C. Bacon Parrel Foundry & Machine Company, New York, N. Y.
R. Baffrey, president of the Hennebique Construction C<Mnpany, New
Ybrk, N. Y.
Castalia Portland Cement Company, Pittsburg, Pa.
Cement Machinery Company, Jackson, Mich.
Clyde Iron Works, Duluth, Minn.
Commercial Wood and Cement Company, New York, N. Y.
Contractors Plant Company, Boston, Mass.
Contractors Supply Company, Chicago, 111.
F. H. Crafts, manufacturer, Rochester, N. Y.
K. Dykema & Son, manufacturers, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Thomas C. Farrell, builder and contractor, Washington, N. J.
The Hayden Automatic Block Machine Company, Columbus, Ohio.
Lyons Burial Vault Company, Lyons, N. Y.
Daniel Luten, president of the National Bridge Company, Indianapolis,
Ind.
L. J. Mensch, C. E., Reinforced Concrete Construction, Chicago, 111.
Municipal Engineering and Contracting Company, Chicago, 111.
H. W. Ott, assistant manager. The Rcebling Construction Company, New
York, N. Y.
Harmon S. Palmer Hollow Concrete Building Block Company, Washing-
ton, D. C.
Peninsular Portland Cement Company, Jackson, Mich.
A. W. Ransome, Ransome and Smith Company, New York, N. Y.
Ra)miond Concrete Pile Company, Chicago, 111.
Sandusky Portland Cement Company, Sandusky, Ohio.
E. Saxton, contractor, Washington, D. C.
C. W. Stevens, president of the Stevens Cast Stone Company, Chicago, 111.
St. Louis Expanded Metal Fireproofing Company, St. Louis, Mo.
Trussed Concrete Steel Company, Detroit, Mich.
Tucker and Vinton, contractors, New York, N. Y.
Vulcanite Portland Cement Company, New York, N. Y.
Western Cement Company, Louisville, Ky.
The Winget Concrete Machine Company, Columbus, Ohio.
Others who have given information and assistance and whom I wish
to thank are :
J. G. Berquist, superintendent of Cement Department, Illinois Steel Com-
pany, Chicago, 111.
A. V. Bleininger, instructor in Ceramics, Ohio State University, Colum-
bus, Ohio.
U. J. Cary, secretary, Utica Cement Company, Utica, 111.
Robert Cummings, C. E., Pittsburg, Pa.
G. Janssen and Sons, contractors, Peoria, 111.
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STATE GEOUXSIST. 15
W. S. MacHarg, consulting engineer to the city of Chicago, Chicago, 111.
James McGillicudy, engineer for J. V. Farwell Company, Chicago, 111.
William Mueser, C. E., Concrete Steel Engineering Company, New York,
N. Y.
W. O. Schcibell, general manager for the American Art Tile Company,
Columbus, Ohio.
Richard B. Sears, editor of "Cement,' New York, N. Y.
J. Waldo Smith, C. E., East Jersey Water Company, Paterson, N. J.
L. C. Stripling, superintendent. Pacific Coast Borax Company, Bayonne,
N.J.
G. W. Vaughn, division engineer, N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R., Buffalo, N. Y-
Major J. H. Willard, U. S. Engineers Corps, Chicago, 111.
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STATE GEOLOGIST.
n
CHAPTER L
A BRIEF fflSTORY OF CEMENT.
Cummings in his "American Cements" says : "The fact is, the his-
tory of natural rock cement reaches so far back into the early ages, that
it is impossible to learn precisely the date of its earliest fabrication. But
we do know that ancient Egyptians made natural cement 4,000 years ago,
which set under water. The Romans over 2,000 years ago used it in
sewer and water mains, fountains, etc. Prior to this an aqueduct over 70
miles in length was built for the ancient city of Carthage. At one place it
was carried across a valley on arches over 100 feet high, 1,000 arches in
the line. Immense quantities of natural cement were used in its con-
struction. Some of these arches are still standing. At one point where
the arches are the highest, a piece over 100 feet long has fallen from the
top of the aqueduct to the rocks below and still lies there intact, unbroken,
illustrating the toughness, tenacity and durability of the natural rock
cement."
Shadwell in "The Architectural History of the City of Rome" says
that the earliest use of lime mortar among the Romans dates back to 175
B. C. to the construction of the "Emporium," the walls of which are a
mass of concrete, rough stone and mortar. From this time on much con-
crete was used in the walls of buildings, fortifications, aqueducts, etc.
The Colosseum, built by Vespasian and Titus, A. D. 75 to 80, was
largely of concrete walls with cut Travertine stone, having the inner walls
faced with brick.
The aqueducts, in order to make them impervious, were lined with
a cement mortar composed of crushed fragments of brick with fresh lime,
called by the early Romans, "Opus signinum ;" it is still known and used
in Rome under the name "cocciopesto."
Another form of concrete known as "Opus Reticulatum," looks like
brick work, but is composed of a lime concrete w^all having wedge shaped
pieces of Tufa driven into the face of the wall before the concrete attained
full set. It is said that some 25 or 30 years ago an attempt to destroy
such a wall on the Quirinal, failed on account of the immense expense
required due to the extreme hardness and toughness of the concrete, such
walls being indestructible except by the use of dynamite.
2— s. G.
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18 ANNUAL REPORT
This failure seems to imply one of two things, either that ancient
concrete was very superior in toughness to anything we now construct,
or else, that the Latin race lacks much of the vigor and persistency which
the Yankees possess ; for, elsewhere in this paper an account is given of the
successful removal of a solid concrete monolith of great toughness in pre-
paring the foundations of the new post office building in Chicago.
The dome of the Pantheon, which was erected at the beginning of the
Christian era, is of concrete supported in a frame work of brick arches.
It has an internal diameter of 142 feet. For 2,000 years nature has been
expending her energies upon the structure, but it still survives to tell the
story of the durability of concrete. Figure i shows this remarkable
building.
Fig. 1. — View of the Pantheon at Rome.
"The Pantheon at Rome is the most perfect existing classical building in that fa-
mous old city. It was built by Agrippa, 27 B. C, nearly 2,000 years ago. The circular
walls are about 20 feet in thickness, and the roof is a hemispherical cement concrete
dome with a thirty-foot opening in the top and spanning in the clear 142 feet 6 inches.
This Is the most remarkable instance in the world's history showing the great
strengrth, durability and permanence in cement concrete construction. It has baffled
the destructive elements of time for nineteen centuries and shows not a single crack
to-day."
Cummings says that in Mexico and Peru, natural rock cement was
used so long ago in stone masonry that the stone has worn away leaving
the projecting mortar joints.
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STATE GEOLOGIST. 19
MODERN CEMENTS.
Cements, as we know them today — ^meaning either natural or Portland
cements — were not known commercially until the beginning of the last
century. Indeed, Portland cement has not been manufactured on a com-
mercial scale much longer than 50 years. The Roman cement was a
natural cement, eyen more natural than cement bearing that name today —
because it needed no burning, but was manufactured directly from the
volcanic ashes around Mount Vesuvius, especially those found near Poz-
zuoli, and it was therefore called Pozzuolana.
Cements m England* — The first cements manufactured in modern
times were made in England and were called "Roman Cements" from
their resemblance to the old Roman cements which hardened under water.
In 1756 while preparing to build the Eddystone light-house, John Smeaton
began investigations which led to the discovery that argillaceous lime-
stones produced limes that would set under water, called hydraulic limes.
He carried his investigation far enough to secure a good hydraulic lime
or natural cement, which through its durability in the Eddystone light-
house gave Smeaton lasting fame in engineering science. The Eddy-
stone light-house built in 1756-58 by Smeaton was on a very exposed
coast in the English Channel south of Plymouth. It was rebuilt in 1882,
not because of the failure of Smeaton's cement, but due to the wearing
away of the solid rock beneath the tower.
In 1796, Joseph Parker, manufactured a Roman cement by calcining
and crushing septaria nodules found on the Isle of Sheppey just off the
coast of Kent, England. Parker's patent, dated June 28, 1796, and num-
bered 2120, claims the invention of: "A certain, Cement of Terras (trass)
to be Used in Aquatic and other Buildings, and Stucco Work."
He described his process as follows :
"The principle and nature of said invention consists in re-
ducing to powder certain stones or argillaceous productions,
called noddles of clay, and using that powder with water so as
to form a water (mortar?) or cement stronger and harder than
any mortar or cement now prepared by artifical means. I do
not know of any precise general term for these Noddles (?) of
clay; but I mean by them certain stones of clay or concretions
of clay, containing veins of calcareous matter, having fre-
quently but not always water in the center, the cavity of which
is covered with small crystals of the above calcareous matter
— ^being burned with heat stronger than that used for burning
lime — and by having water thrown upon them, and being re-
duced to powder after burning, and being mixed with water
just suflacient to make them into pas-te, become indurated in
water in the space of an hour, or thereabouts. Any argilla-
ceous stone, then, corresponding with this description, whether
known by the name noddles of clay, or any other name, is the
sort and kind only that I mean to appropriate to my own use
in the fermentation (formation?) of my cement.'*
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20 ANNUAL REPORT
Natural cement was produced at Boulogne, France, in 1802, from
Septaria, called Boulogne pebbles.
Edgar Dobbs, of Southwark, London, took out a patent in 1810 on
a manufactured artificial hydraulic lime, or cement, made by mixing car-
bonate of lime and clay, drying, molding and burning' sufficiently to expel
the carbonic acid without vitrifying the substances.
Joseph Aspdin, a brick mason of Leeds, England, first manufactured
a real artificial cement, ^hich process he patented in 1824 and called the
product Portland cement because the artificial stone produced from such
cement was very similar in character and appearance to the noted building
stone obtained in the quarries on the island of Portland, in Dorsetshire,
England.
Portland cement did not become an acceptable building material,
however, until John Grant, an eminent engineer, employed on the London
drainage works in 1850, had thoroughly tested it and discussed its use in a
scientific manner, and had written several clever articles upon the subject
for the institute of civil engineers. From that day until the present time
it has been an important material in English construction. England led
in the manufacture and use of Portland cement for 25 years, but Germany
finally took the lead in its production and it is only within the last two years
that the United States has passed all other countries and approached
Germany in the development of the cement industry. .
In 1900, England produced between 7 and 8 million barrels of Port-
land cement.
Cements in France* — The growth of the cement industry in France
has not been so marked as it has been in several other countries, but her
chemists have led in first establishing the true principles of hydraulic ce-
ments. In 1802 natural cement was produced at Boulogne from Septaria.
In 1813 to 1818 M. Vicat produced hydraulic lime or natural cement arti-
ficially by mixing chalks and clays. In 1846 the manufacture of Portland
cement was first begun in France near Boulogne.
The output of Portland cement in France for 1900 was about 3,500,-
000 barrels.
Cements in Germany. — In Germany the first Portland cement works
were established at Stettin, in 1855, in the now famous Hamburg Portland
cement district. The growth of the production of Portland cement in Ger-
many was almost as phenomenal as it has been during late years in the
United States. From a production of 30,000 barrels in 1855, the pro-
duction grew until in 1877, 29 factories produced 2,400,000 barrels. In
1886, 42 factories produced 5,700,000 barrels. In 1900, 70 factories pro-
duced nearly 20,000,000 barrels.
For many years Germany has exported two to four million barrels of
cement each year to the United States besides its exports to other countries.
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STATE GEOLOGIST. 21
In 1901, however, the exports of German cements to the United States
fell below 600,000 barrels.
Cements in the United States. — The first discovery and manufacture
of cement in the United States was made in 1818 by Canvass White, who
took out a patent on Roman cement which he manufactured from the
natural rock near Fayetteville, New York. This was used in the masonry
work on the Erie canal.
A diary ,^ kept by one of the ancestors of Mr. Samuel T. Wagner, M.
Am. Soc. C. E., during a trip over the Erie canal while it was under con-
struction, reads as follows : "An important discovery by Mr. White of a
lime whose properties resemble and are equal to the Roman cement aided
the construction and greatly insures the permanent duration of the massive
and important masonry of this great work. Experience and time have
established its power to harden under water. It contains 35 parts carbonic
acid, 25 parts lime, 15 parts silex, 16 parts alumine, 2 parts water and i
part oxide of iron. It is calcined, ground and mixed with an equal weight
of sand and but little water. It is found in inexhaustible quantities."
In 1824, natural cement rock was found at Williamsville, Erie county.
New York. This discovery was also brought about by the necessities of
the Erie canal. A natural rock cement was manufactured at Kensington,
Conn., in 1826, while the first works in the famous Rosendale district in
New York were not established until 1828.
Quoting from Mr. Robert W. Lesley's paper, "History of the Port-
land Cement Industry in the United States," he says :
"The first large public works built in this country were the canak,
and the most necessary thing to build a canal was mortar that would hold
the stones together at the locks, or walls, under water. Consequently,
wherever canals were to be built, there was a search for cement rocks, and
all the earliest works in this country were established on the lines of canals.
Thus, on the Chesapeake and Ohio are the Cumberland and Round Top
works ; on the Lehigh canal the works at Siegfried and Coplay, Pa. ; on
the Richmond and Allegheny, the works at Balcony Falls, Va. ; on the
Delaware and Hudson canal, the large group of works at Rosendale and
Kingston, and at the Falls of the Ohio canal, the large aggregation of
works at Louisville."
He might have added also, on the Michigan and Illinois canal are the
works at Utica, 111. The works at Louisville were established about 1829,
while the works at Utica, 111., were founded in 1836-38.
The First Portland Cement in the United States. — The first Portland
cement manufactured in this country was made from natural rock by Mr.
David O. Saylor, of Coplay, Pa. He had been making natural rock ce-
ment for several years, when he turned his attention to the production of
a more perfect cement in the early seventies. By careful selection, grind-
^Eng, Record, Oct. 3, 1903.
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ANNUAL REPORT
ing and mixing he produced a Portland cement which he exhibited at
the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 at Philadelphia. This cement com-
pared favorably with the imported cements of that date.
Up to 1880 five other works were established as follows : At Rondout,
N. Y., Kalamazoo, Mich., Wampum, Pa., South Bend, Ind., and Rock-
land, Me. Of these six works but three have made sufficient success to
survive. In reality the Portland cement industry in the United States
as a commercial success dates back no further than 1882; 21 years of
Portland cement life brings us to the year of its majority, 1903. Below
is given a table showing the production of Portland cement in this country
and the importation of foreign cements from 1880 to 1902 inclusive.
TABLE I.
Table Showing Production of American Portland Cement, and Im-
portation of Foreign Portland Cement for years
1880 to 1902, inclusive.
American.
Foreign.
American.
Foreign.
Year
Year.
Barrels.
42,000
Barrels.
Barrels.
454,813
Barrels.
1880
1891
2,988,318
1881
60,000
1892
547,440
2,440,654
1882
85,000
370,406
1893
590,662
2,674,149
1883
90,000
456,418
1894
798,757
2,688,107
1884
100,000
585,768
1895
990,324
2,997,395
1885
150,000
554,396
1896
1,543,023
2,989,597
1886
150,000 *
915,255
1897
2,677,776
2,090,924
1887
250,000
1,514,095
1898
3,692,284
2,013,818
1888
250,000
1,836,504
1899
6,662,266
2,108,388
1889
300,000
1,740,536
1900
8,482,020
2,386,683
1890
386,500
1,940,186
1901
12,711.226
939,330
1902
17.230,644
1,961,413
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STATE GEOLCX;iST. 23
CHAPTER n
THE USES OF CEMENT IN MORTARS.
There are three general forms in which cement is used, namely: (i)
in mortars, (2) in plain concrete and (3) in reinforced or steel concrete
construction.
As a mortar, it may be used either in a neat paste, or as a real mortar
of cement mixed with sand. In the mortar form it is used for jointing
all classes of masonry, for plastering walls and masonry surfaces, for
fillers in street paving, for nearly all classes of ornamental work, for
roofing-tile, for special processes of hardening quicksand in order to
permit of excavation, for a protective coating to the metal work of bridges
and viaducts to prevent rust and corrosion from the smoke blast of loco-
motives, etc., etc.
THE DEVELOPMENT.
Cement was undoubtedly first used in the form of mortar in laying
stone or brick masonry. If a history of the development of masonry were
written, the chronological steps of its progress would probably assume
the following order : first, rough stones piled loosely in wall or pier form ;
second, selected stones with flat or squared surfaces set up in more reg-
ular forms, as was done by the ancient Hebrews in building their altars ;
third, selected stones, chipped into still more rectangular shapes and more
carefully laid into regular forms of construction ; fourth, to insure greater
stability, mud paste, clay, or bitumen was used to cement the stones in
place, and, finally, a mortar of lime or puzzuolana was discovered and used
which insured permanency and durability to the work.
The oldest mortar so far discovered appears to be that found by Mr.
Wm. Clarke, a civil engineer of England, who brought back for analysis
a piece of mortar secured from the ruins of an ancient Phoenician temple
near Larnaca on the island of Cypress. Mr. Wm. Wallace, in a paper read
before the Mechanics' Institute, at Glasgow, says (speaking of this mortar
which he had chemically analyzed) : "Mr. Clarke supposes this to be the
most ancient mortar in existence." He says further, "It is exceedingly
hard and firm — and appears to have been made of a mixture of burnt
lime, sharp sand and gravel.'' Of another specimen from the great Pyr-
amid of Cheops, Mr. Wallace says, "Two specimens of mortar from the
Pyramid of Cheops were examined, one from the interior and the other
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24 ANNUAL REPORT
from the outside — both present the same appearance, that of a mixture of
plaster of a slightly pinkish color with crystallized selenite or gypsum.
They do not appear to contain any sand. The mortar is easily reduced to
fragments, but possesses a moderate degree of tenacity." While the
chemical analyses given by Mr. Wallace of both mortars do not parallel
the usual Portland cement analyses, they do show that the ancient people
knew how to manufacture the materials for a very durable mortar. An-
other specimen, Mr. Wallace says, "was taken from the Pnyx, in Athens,
the platform from which Demosthenes and Pericles delivered many of their
orations. It has been long exposed to the action of the weather, is very
hard, and of grayish white color."
While these specimens show the antiquity of mortar and how durable
even a poor mortar may be, it is only within the last century and particu-
larly the last decade that the high development of cement manufacture
has brought into use mortars that are nearly perfect and almost indestruct-
ible.
THE ADVANTAGES OF CEMENT MORTAR OVER LIME MORTAR.
The uniform bearing and equality of support in the bed of each block
of stone aids in securing strong and durable masonry. Lime mortar has
furnished a masonry construction which has endured for centuries undeF
trying conditions, yet for modern requirements in large warehouses, sky-
scraping office buildings and massive chimneys and bridge piers, a mortar
which will more nearly equal in strength that of the building material
used, is needed. Lime mortar simply furnishes a bed for the stone or
brick, a bed which has but a fractional part of the crushing strength which
stone or well made brick possess. With good cement mortar, however,
a bed or joint is provided which continues to harden until frequently it
will sustain greater strains without rupture than the body of the masonry
itself can withstand.
With lime mortar there are several weak characteristics, namely, lack
of tensile or cohesive strength, lack of crushing strength, porosity, in-
ability to harden under water, and the necessity for contact with air, that
the mortar may receive sufficient carbonic acid to thoroughly set.
Baker in his "Masonry Construction" gives the tensile strength of lime
mortar of the proportions of i lime paste to 3 sand, at one year old, as 50
pounds per square inch. The present American Portland cements in mor-
tars of the same proportions and age will run from 350 to 450 pounds per
square inch.
The crushing strength of mortars are about 8 to 10 times their tensile
strength and the same relative difference still exists between lime and
Portland cement mortars, making the compression strength of Portland
cement mortar from 3,500 to 4,500 pounds per square inch.
The average tensile strength of 12 American Portland cements in
mortars of i cement and 3 sand, one month old, tested at one laboratory.
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STATE GEOLOGIST. 25
was 308 pounds per square inch. The average of six cements, at another
laboratory, tested at six months of age, was 404 pounds. The average of
14 American and German cements at one year old, in proportions of i
cement and 3 sand, was 361 pounds. The average of tests from ten dif-
ferent cement testers upon Giant Portland cement mortar, i cement and
3 sand, one year old, was 414 pounds ; while 8 of the same testers gave
results for i cement and 2 sand which averaged at one year old 492 pounds.