102 ANNUAL REPORT 
CHAPTER II. 
THE CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL EXAMINATION OF 
CEMENT MATERIALS. 
This subject will be taken up in the order of the classification adopted 
in the beginning. In treating the various methods of examining the 
materials we must bear in mind that we are to distinguish between scien- 
tifically exact and technical methods. Though the first are of great value 
in their place, they cannot be followed very closely in practice where 
rapidity is one of the great considerations. We must therefore keep 
this fact well before us. Another fact to be realized is the close connec- 
tion between certain chemical and physical methods which go hand in 
hand and bring to light important relations which are not brought out by 
chemical or physical methods alone. 
Prospecting and Sampling.—In investigating a.new property for 
cement raw materials, it must be realized that the best methods of 
examination are of no value whatever unless the samples analyzed 
represent truly the character of the deposit. The guiding principle should 
invariably be that the less homogeneous a deposit is, the more samples 
must be taken and the more carefully must the work be done. The 
writer could cite a considerable number of examples where neglect to 
make a proper preliminary exlamination has resulted in the ultimate 
loss of thousands of dollars. Investors who are willing to put enormous 
capital into new plants often seem unwilling to spend a few hundred 
dollars for a preliminary mineral survey of the property. It is difficult 
to sympathize with such people thus rushing into financial disaster. 
There seems a feeling, almost general among a certain class of small 
capitalists and business men, that the advice of a technically trained ex- 
pert is either unsafe or unnecessary or both. Large financiers have gotten 
well beyond this stage and seldom move in any mineral enterprise until 
all has been done that the best and most skilful mining engineers can do, 
in disclosing the facts and prospects. But the business man who has made 
a little money in his own line, in which his judgment is skilled, seems 
imbued with an equal confidence in his judgment in some other field of 
which he knows nothing. The mineral industry, which above all others 
requires close and accurate technical supervision to attain, is the most 
favored field of these inexperienced and self-confident investors, and the 
loss annually suffered in this way from ignorant and ill-advised invest- 
ment is simply beyond belief. 
