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 ofiron. 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 savs: 
“The first large public works built in this country were the canals, 
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 1n 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, Ill. The works at Louisville were established about 1820, 
while the works at Utica, Ill., 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- 
1Hng. Record, Oct. 3, 1908. 
