152 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
throughout the Province, so I have no doubt a supply of native manufac- 
ture will be forthcoming whenever the demand arises. 
Concrete. 
At this stage concrete will be considered as a substitute for stone and 
bricks only ; the properties of the native ingredients will be more fully dis- 
cussed in a subsequent chapter on ‘‘ Limes, Cements, and their aggregates.” 
Perhaps there is no building material in existence to which so much 
attention has of late years been directed as concrete, and with reference to 
its principal ingredient—Portland cement—the feeling in its favour is almost 
amania. It is applied to every conceivable purpose, from the huge mono- 
lithic mass that resists the greatest force of the ocean in a breakwater, to 
the plaster on the bottom of an ironclad that prevents the adhesion of shell- 
fish and seaweed. In such a multiplicity of uses, it is impossible to avoid 
oceasional failure; but this has resulted more from an erroneous estimate 
of the properties of the material, and its consequent misapplication, than 
from incapacity to perform its proper functions. Another cause of failure, 
particularly in house-building, is the want of skill and care in mixing and 
depositing the ingredients. 
The use of concrete as a building material is not confined, as is some- 
times supposed, to the present age ; it enters into the composition of many 
of the pyramids of Egypt, the Roman temples, and the feudal castles of 
Great Britain, whose substantial appearance still attract attention. It 
should, however, be explained that the often quoted superiority of those 
. ancient structures is a popular fallacy. When tested ina scientific manner 
it is clearly proved that their reputed strength will not bear comparison 
with modern masonry. In fact, there have been no mortars, ancient or 
modern, whose cohesive properties approach, in the most remote degree, 
those of Portland Cement. 
Although used to a considerable extent by the ancients, and in Medieval 
ages, concrete has not, for several generations, been applied to the ordinary 
purposes of the house-builder. The invention of artificial cements has of late 
years given a fresh impetus to the art, and it has already in many cases 
fairly supplanted stone and brick. 
The advantages claimed for concrete, and the uses to which it is applied, 
are to numerous to be discussed here. I shall, however, take a cursory 
glance at some of its more prominent features. The first, and in my 
opinion the highest, property to which it lays claim, is the facility afforded 
for building massive structures without the expense of lifting or transport- 
ing heavy weights. Its superiority over all other materials in this respect 
is undoubted, consequently it will always take the foremost place in break- 
waters, foundations, and other works of a massive character, 
