SOIL TESTING

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3271, 25 February 1937, Page 5

SOIL TESTING

EXPERIMENTS IN CANTERBURY

RESEARCH BY MR R. L. JAMES

Many tributes have been paid to the work of Mr R. L. James, of Canterbury University College, and son of Mrs S. R-. James, of Cambridge, who has been Carrying out experiments in soil testing. When reading a paper at the annual conference of the New Zealand Society of Civil Engineers at Christchurch recently, Mr F. M. Hanson, assistant Public Works Engineer for the Wellington district, stated that the experiments of Mr James would eventually be of great value not only to highway contractors, but to all engineers of New Zealand who have earthwork to do. “I hope that he will continue with his investigations and research,” Mr Hanson added.

“For some unaccountable reason,” ho said later, “road engineers view laboratory testing work with indifference or even disfavour, but it must be realised that the building of roads has become highly specialised work, which necessitates greater experience and skill, better organisation and construction plant, and scientific thinking, which has often been lacking in the past. In all respect the highway has assumed increased engineering importance. The engineer has to build better roads today than he did yesterday.” The value of laboratory work was also emphasised by the president, Professor .1. E. L. Cull, who said that road engineers were making use of the laboratory all the time. He said that Mr James had received great recognition for his soil research.