Copyright. 1908
BY
The Myron C. Clark Publishing Co.
How best to perform construction work and what it will cost formaterials, labor, plant and general expenses are matters of vitalinterest to engineers and contractors. This book is a treatise on themethods and cost of concrete construction. No attempt has been made topresent the subject of cement testing which is already covered by Mr. W.Purves Taylor's excellent book, nor to discuss the physical propertiesof cements and concrete, as they are discussed by Falk and by Sabin, norto consider reinforced concrete design as do Turneaure and Maurer orBuel and Hill, nor to present a general treatise on cements, mortars andconcrete construction like that of Reid or of Taylor and Thompson. Onthe contrary, the authors have handled the subject of concreteconstruction solely from the viewpoint of the builder of concretestructures. By doing this they have been able to crowd a great amount ofdetailed information on methods and costs of concrete construction intoa volume of moderate size.
Though the special information contained in the book is of mostparticular assistance to the contractor or engineer engaged in theactual work of making and placing concrete, it is believed that it willalso prove highly useful to the designing engineer and to the architect.It seems plain that no designer of concrete structures can be a reallygood designer without having a profound knowledge of methods ofconstruction and of detailed costs. This book, it is believed, givesthese methods and cost data in greater number and more thoroughlyanalyzed than they can be found elsewhere in engineering literature.
The costs and other facts contained in the book have been collected froma multitude of sources, from the engineering journals, from thetransactions of the engineering societies, from Government Reports andfrom the personal records of the authors and of other engineers andcontractors. It is but fair to say that the great bulk of the mattercontained in the book,[Pg iv] though portions of it have appeared previouslyin other forms in the authors' contributions to the technical press, wascollected and worked up originally by the authors. Where this has notbeen the case the original data have been added to and re-analyzed bythe authors. Under these circumstances it has been impracticable to givespecific credit in the pages of the book to every source from which theauthors have drawn aid. They wish here to acknowledge, therefore, thehelp secured from many engineers and contractors, from the volumes ofEngineering News, Engineering Record and Engineering-Contracting, andfrom the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers and theproceedings and papers of various other civil engineering societies andorganizations of concrete workers. The work done by these journals andsocieties in gathering and publishing information on concreteconstruction is of great and enduring value and deserves fullacknowledgment.
In answer to any possible inquiry as to the relative parts of the workdone by the two authors in preparing this book, they will answer that ithas been truly the labor of both in every part.
H. P. G.
C. S. H.