‘Geology for engineers’

Geological practice carried out for civil engineers. A branch of applied geology, which is the application of geology to industrial needs and is the particular discipline applied to civil engineering, especially related to the design, construction and performance of engineering structures interacting with the ground. This does not necessarily imply the use of engineering geology skills or practice in the identification or resolving of geological problems in engineering.

‘Engineering geology’

This is more than geology that is simply useful for civil engineers. It differs from geology for engineers in that its practitioners have training and experience in ground problems that arise in civil engineering and in the investigation, classification and performance of soils and rocks related to civil engineering situations; and a working knowledge of basic soil mechanics, rock mechanics and hydrogeology. Such practitioners provide engineering geology.

I hold the view that it would be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible to identify the first publication in engineering geology in UK (let alone the rest of the world). This would require some consensus on a date stipulating when ‘engineering geology’ was started or, using the chosen publication as the point to specify when ‘engineering geology’ started. Definitions of geology for engineers, engineering geology, soil mechanics, geotechnics and so on, I believe are not black and white, since all of these subjects merge at their borders. I also believe that over time, it is clear that early works on geology led on to applied or practical geology (or was it vice versa?) which subsequently led to development of ‘geology for engineers’ and on to what many of us trust we practice today, ‘engineering geology’. Skempton (1979) held similar views on early soil mechanics. He stated:

‘. . . the subject existed in all but name long before 1925, even if it had not yet been welded together and recognized as a coherent discipline. Rather, it existed as a set of somewhat isolated topics such as earth pressure theory and practical knowledge of slips in clay slopes, . . .’.

I think it safe to say that ‘engineering geology’ did not exist as such in the 19th century but became identifiable as a discipline ‘in its own right’ in the 20th century. Arguably, practical geology started even earlier than the construction of the pyramids, with the experience of quarrying and ground performance being passed on to following generations. This knowledge developed with accumulating experience throughout the centuries, for example, heavy foundations of mediaeval cathedrals in Britain were often built on difficult ground but have generally stood the test of time, albeit some with much modern underpinning. By the 18th and 19th century, published work on the geology of the ground for engineering structures was becoming relatively commonplace. I select a few examples below, starting with, say, William Smith's map (1815) developed firstly for economic reasons (mainly coal) and secondly for engineering (canal construction) . . . arguably a contender for the first engineering geology publication in Britain! However, as I have said above, I do not subscribe to the view that it is realistic to assign such an accolade to any one piece of work until at least the starting date of the term ‘engineering geology’ is defined. Even then, it would be very difficult. Look at the following:

Rickman, W. 1840. Earthfalls at the Undercliff in the Isle of Wight (summary). Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Engrs., 1, 35–36

and a vintage year, 1844:

Thomas, J. G. 1844. Account of the landslip in Ashley Cutting, on the line of the Great Western Railway (summary). Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Engrs., 3, 129–133.

Gregory, C. H. 1844. On railway cuttings and embankments: with an account of some slips in the London Clay, on the line of the London and Croydon Railway. Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Engrs., 3, 135–144.

Gregory's paper on the London area contains a lot of practical insight into various rock and soil types, including a geological section of the New Cross railway cutting in which fifteen horizons are described by their lithology, together with their thicknesses.

Hoskins, W. 1844. Introduction of constructions to retain the sides of deep cuttings in clays, or other uncertain soils. Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Engrs., 3, 355–367.

Rendel, J. M. 1853. Description of the Chesil Bank, with remarks upon its origin, the causes which have contributed to its formation, and upon the movement of shingle generally. Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Engrs., 12, 520–546.

Prestwich, J. 1874. On the geological conditions affecting the construction of a tunnel between England and France. Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Engrs., 37, 110–145.

The latter surely is another candidate for the first publication in engineering geology . . . or is it ‘geology for engineers’?

Williams, Sir Edward, L. 1881. On the recent landslips in the salt districts of Cheshire. Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Engrs., 70, 378–385.

Of special note is:

Rankine, W. J. M. 1862. A manual of civil engineering. London: Griffith and Bohn.

This is a most authoritative book which immediately became a standard text that continued being updated for another fifty years. Much of its content is what is now called ‘soil mechanics’ proper, including the design of retaining walls, anchor beams, a guide to various types of soils, stabilization of temporary works with vertical faces, and various earthworks.

Of note was Rankine's classification of foundations for walls and buildings, four decades before Woodward, viz., rock; firm earth, such as sand, gravel and hard clay; and soft earth. He suggested for sound rock bearing pressures up to 10 ton/ft², and for weaker sandstones, 2 ton/ft². Importantly for engineering geology, he held the view that the characteristics of the earth (which he gave as ‘adhesion’ and ‘friction’) are so variable that the engineer should never trust in books or tables ‘when he has it in his power to obtain the necessary data either by observation of existing earthworks in the same stratum, or by experiment’. Does this have a familiar ring?

I should add here, for the sake of accuracy, that although I am discussing specifically only British practice, much of the brilliant pioneering work in the understanding and quantification of engineering parameters for ground conditions came from French engineers.

There are many other publications, which could be quoted, but not in a brief discussion. However, I should like to add one more, with its far-sighted views anticipating modern engineering geology and geotechnical practice as yet some 150 years still in the future, i.e.

Parnell, H. B. 1833. ‘A treatise on roads; wherein the principles on which roads should be made are explained and illustrated, by the plans, specifications, and contracts made use of by Thomas Telford, Esq. on the Holyhead Road’. London: Longman.

In it, he gives ‘safe slopes’ for cuttings:⇓

I hasten to add, none of the above must detract from the memoir described by Professor Culshaw or from the long history of excellence in pure and applied geology in all forms by the Geological Survey of Great Britain. However, it is to confirm my long held view that the progressive development of practical geology into engineering geology has been an iterative process with times of spurts (e.g. the early 1900 s; the 1960 s) and times of quiescence. Woodward stood on the shoulders of giants.

M.H. de Freitas writes: Professor Culshaw's fascinating article on Woodward's map of 1897 raises the point commonly held that engineering geology in the UK emerged as a recognizable subject shortly after the Second World War with 1948 being the year when the forerunner of what is now the British Geotechnical Association was established. Woodward's map of 1897 causes one to wonder if we have missed something here as subjects rarely burst onto the scene but gel after a formative period when isolated incidents can be seen in hindsight to be part of a whole that should be defined. I propose this happened towards the start of the 1900’s and suggest that the commonly held date of the mid-40’s, for the establishment of the subject, is approximately 40 years adrift from reality; my reason for doing so is the work of the engineer Herbert Lapworth DSc., MICE, FGS.

Herbert Lapworth was the younger son of the eminent geologist Professor Charles Lapworth FRS. Unlike his father he became an engineer and was responsible for many major constructions in the UK. He obtained his degree in engineering from Birmingham University, a degree which included courses in Geology by his father. This was followed by three years of pupilage under James Mansergh FRS, a former President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Although Mansergh, in keeping with most civil engineering consultants in those days, was based in Westminster, his pupil Lapworth spent most of his time in Wales, being dispatched in 1897, at the age of 22, as Assistant Resident Engineer to the Elan Valley Reservoirs and aqueduct; these were under construction to supply water to Birmingham. There he encountered the great need for engineering to employ the knowledge of geological science. This was reinforced in 1900 when he was Resident Engineer for the Upper Neuadd Dam for Merthyr Waterworks – again in Wales, and by his work thereafter.

Unlike those before him who, recognizing the importance of geology to engineering but doing nothing other than recording that need in print, Lapworth set about ordering his experience and sorting his ideas so as to be able to teach the subject, and in 1907 gave the first of a series of lectures at the Institution of Civil Engineers on ‘The Principles of Engineering Geology’; (Proc Institution Civil Engineers Vol clxxiii, Session 1907–1908, Part iii). The lectures were given in two sessions and the course continued to be given for a number of years. There was something clearly special about this course, for although it refers to publications where geology is applied to engineering, those authors did not make their mark to anything like the extent that Lapworth was able to secure. A measure of this is the fact that Lapworth was awarded, in 1908, the Telford Gold Medal of the Institution for the course he delivered in 1907. These lectures he also gave to students of the Royal School of Mines at Imperial College and to those at Liverpool University.

Lapworth had by that time realized that London was the place to be and Westminster in particular; he travelled south, established his own consultancy at Westminster in 1910 and soon became an influential voice advising Parliament on the many Water Bills that were coming before it. He became a personal friend of Professor W.W. Watts, the then Professor of Geology at the Royal School of Mines in South Kensington, and was invited by Watts to deliver his course there as a matter of routine; this he did, thus providing those in London with an active consultant who supported an academic base for his subject. The two lecture course became a twenty lecture course delivered annually from 1910 until 1922. The programme of lectures is as relevant today as it was then and was clearly ahead of its time when delivered. This initiative caused the Royal School of Mines to later appoint Mr F.G. Blyth (who like Lapworth was also an engineer) to continue the good work; Blyth's successor was, the then, Dr J.L. Knill.

It seems very unlikely that Lapworth would be unaware of Woodward's work at the Survey and vice versa; they were contemporaries, they were geographically related as the Survey was just around the corner in Exhibition Road from the School of Mines in Prince Consort Road, they were both advising government and from 1914 –1921 Lapworth was the Hon Secretary of the Geological Society of London. Lapworth had a distinguished career applying geology in civil and water engineering, a career that has yet to be properly recorded.

Lapworth's legacy resulted in Engineering Geology being taught at Imperial College since 1910; I would say that was the start of ‘the subject’ in the UK and that is where it took root. Many will know that Blyth, as Lapworth's successor, taught geology to Skempton, . . . and so on and so forth.

M.G. Culshaw replies: I very much welcome Peter Fookes’ detailed comments in which he shows that a number of what we would now call engineering geological accounts, particularly in relation to landsliding, were published in the 19th Century, long before the publication of Woodward’s memoir in 1897. As Peter Fookes notes, I deliberately added the question mark at the end of the title, mainly to try to develop this discussion. What makes Woodward’s work slightly different from those quoted by Peter Fookes is that it attempts to synthesize information that came from a number of sources (including field and site observation) and to provide advice for non-professional as well as professional users. In meeting this aim, Woodward certainly did stand on the ‘shoulders of giants’ drawing, no doubt, on the work of a number of colleagues both inside and outside the Geological Survey.

One of these must have been William Henry Penning, a geologist with the Geological Survey of England and Wales and hence a colleague of Woodward. Penning, who had trained as a civil engineer (Lapworth 1903), and Woodward worked together on a special series of drift maps of the London area published in 1871–2 (Flett 1937). Since I wrote the original paper, an interesting publication by Penning has come to light (pers. comm. Dr Allen Hatheway). This is a book entitled ‘Engineering Geology’ (Penning 1880). The book is an enlarged version of a series of articles that were published in The Engineer in 1879, shortly before his early retirement (due to ill health) in 1882. As well as covering field geological surveying methods and economic minerals and water supply, the first part of the book discusses the importance of geology to ‘practical works’ such as tunnels, embankments, cuttings and bridges. The importance of Rankine’s (1862) textbook on civil engineering is confirmed as Penning draws heavily upon it.

Mike de Freitas has pointed out, in his interesting discussion contribution, that Herbert Lapworth was very active in engineering geology at the same time as Woodward. It would be surprising if they had not met and discussed matters, though they were slightly further apart than Mike de Freitas indicates as the Geological Survey was based in Jermyn Street (which runs parallel to Piccadilly) at the time, not moving to the Geological Museum in Exhibition Road until early 1934, with the formal opening by HRH the Duke of York on 3 July 1935. The reason for the move is an interesting story in itself. In April 1923 it was found that the roof of the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street needed repair because of settlement of the foundations. This settlement was attributed to the effects of a German bomb that landed in Piccadilly on 19 October 1917 (Bailey 1952).

I hope that the contributions of Peter Fookes, Mike de Freitas and myself will encourage further research into engineering geology's roots.