In 1824, Joseph Aspdin, a British stone mason, obtained a patent for a cement he produced in his kitchen. The inventor heated a mixture of finely ground limestone and clay in his kitchen and ground the mixture into a powder creating a hydraulic cement – one that hardens with the addition of water. Aspdin named the product portland cement because it resembled a stone quarried on the Isle of Portland off the British Coast. With this invention, Aspdin laid the foundation for today's portland cement industry. The
first large use of this modern-day portland cement, and its first engineering use, was in a tunnel under the Thames River in 1828. The first recorded shipment of portland cement t...
