PREFACE: IN the present day the uses of concrete are so diversified and so extensive that there is some justification for the statement that this is the ConcreteAge. To be perfectly fair, however, we must admit that the Iron Age has not yet passed away, and that iron and steel continue to find employment in constructive work, sometimes in competition with concrete, and sometimes in harmonious co-operation with that material as exemplified in the combination known as Reinforced Concrete. The objects of this book are to set forth the essential nature of concrete, to describe briefly the materials of which it is composed, the manner in which these materials are proportioned and mixed, the methods adopted in practice for the application of the product to state as clearly and concisely as possible the fundamental principles of reinforced concrete, and to illustrate by references to typical examples of construction the remarkable characteristics of that happy union of concrete and steel...