Cements and Artificial Stone: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Specimens in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge

Abstract

THE collections brought together by the zealous care of Mr. Watson in the Sedgwick Museum have been of great service in technical geology. Probably much may still be added to the samples of cement and artificial stone described in the present volume, as these materials become still more favoured by architects and engineers. The labour and art of the mason may decline, but the production of durable cements for covering walls, the colouring of them until they surpass in brilliance the painted surfaces of Roman times, and the imparting of increased delicacy to moulded work in stucco, are alike honourable and artistic occupations. The materials of artificial slabs are largely natural rock, brecciated or pulverised, but otherwise untreated, and the pride of their makers lies in the production of monolithic blocks of more uniform texture and more free from cracks than can be obtained from ordinary quarries. Mr. Watson (p. 76) gives an impressive account of the hollow blocks of reinforced concrete, each weighing 2464 tons, and measuring 66 by 53 by 50 feet, used in harbour-construction at Valparaiso in 1917. It seems as if a house of considerable size, with staircases and passage-ways, could now be moulded round a light steel framework as a single piece, and transported by notation to any quarter of the globe.

Cements and Artificial Stone: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Specimens in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge.

By the late John Watson. Edited by Dr. R. H. Rastall. Pp. xii + 131. (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, Ltd.; London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., Ltd., 1922.) 6s. net.

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