Moving the Earth has been prepared to supply the first working coverage of the whole excavation industry.
The past twenty-five years have brought a total revolution in the machinery, the methods, and volume of excavation. The rate of development and diversification of machines is steadily increasing, and the techniques of efficient use become more complicated daily. The annual income from their work is now in billions of dollars.
But the literature on the subject has failed to keep up with its advances, and today a very large proportion of the highly specialized knowledge existing about these machines and their proper use has not been put in writing in such a form that it can be used for reference.
The result is that a tragic loss is incurred every year through unwise selection of equipment, damage to machinery through ignorance of its functions and weak points, and waste of time, material, and money in learning by trial and error. While the industry has proved that it is big and dynamic enough to absorb such losses, it would unquestionably be in an even better position today if they had been reduced.
Moving the Earth has been written primarily to fill the needs of those closest to the actual earth moving: the small contractor, the foreman, and the operator. Since their work is basic to all excavation and to the planning and direction of even the largest projects, the know-how for them should also answer most of the needs of the engineer, the architect, the superintendent, and the student.
Some sections of the book have been arranged to meet the needs of the property owner and home builder, and to assist company and public officials whose duties include planning or supervision of earth moving work.
Knowledge of the contractor’s viewpoint on problems of site selection, cellar excavation and drainage, backfill and landscaping can result in more satisfactory results at lower cost. The owner or responsible official can learn from these pages what can be done, and how. He can use this information in making his plans, in explaining to his architect and contractor exactly what he wants to do, and in defending his ideas against criticism.
The preparation of Moving the Earth has proved a more ambitious project than was apparent at the beginning. Earthmoving is not one industry, but many. It includes hundreds of highly specialized skills, which often have no relation to each other except in their common aim to move dirt or rock. Many of these are important and complex enough to deserve individual reference books.
To drive a tunnel deep underground is a totally different job than to make a fill across a swamp, but the contractor may lump them as a single operation, the waste from one becoming the building material for the other.
The operator of a baby bulldozer grading around a house has nothing in common with the man at the controls of a gigantic stripping shovel, except that they are both classified as operating engineers.
On the other hand, one size and make of bulldozer may be found backfilling a desert pipeline, uprooting jungle stumps in the path of a highway, pushing a scraper on an irrigation land-leveling job, spreading tailings on a mine dump, or placing rock on the face of a dam. One busy hoe shovel may stack logs, pull stumps, pile topsoil, dig a cellar, load trucks, cut ditches, and lay pipe, all on one small job.
It has been difficult to arrange a comprehenisve working guide to an industry with so many varied and separate occupations, which cannot be kept separate because of the way they overlap and interlock. The approach that has been chosen is to divide the book into two distinct sections.
Part One discusses the jobs the excavating contractor is called upon to do, including the preliminary ones of land clearing and rough surveying. The first ten chapters are concerned with the work itself; the basic ways to do it, the problems that arise, and the applications of different types of equipment to the work. Chapter Eleven discusses financing, bookkeeping, estimating, and insurance in regard to the requirements of the excavating contractor.
Part Two is focused on the machines themselves. Every important type of excavating, hauling and grading equipment is discussed and illustrated. Treatment includes mechanical description of the parts and assemblies that go into the machines, the underlying principles of construction, the ways in which special work requirements are met, and suggestions on adjustment and maintenance.
The operation of each machine is explained. In many cases instruction is sufficiently detailed to enable a man to learn from the book alone, although this is less safe and satisfactory than personal instruction. However, because of the complexity of the skills involved, and the secondary importance of the units in general excavation, operation of some machines (oil well drills, for example) has been described for the spectator rather than the operator. Even then, the fundamentals of the work methods are carefully explained.
Special operating techniques, and uses of a machine in various classes of work, will be found both under the main discussion of the unit in Part Two and in appropriate places in Part One. Reference to particular jobs may also be found under several headings. This separation and distribution of subject matter has been necessary to present information in its proper context, to avoid duplication, and to keep an already over-large book from growing out of bounds.
For example, there is a chapter devoted entirely to basements, but further reference to the subject will be found under drainage and landscaping. Crawler tractors and bulldozers have a chapter of their own, but because of almost universal application to earthmoving work, are mentioned in at least nineteen of the other twenty chapters.
In order to provide quick and easy access to all the information on any subject, the subheadings are included in the Table of Contents, and abundant listings and cross references are supplied in an unusually complete index.
Terminology is a difficult problem in this industry, and may well have discouraged attempts of others to write about it. Some words, such as bulldozer and catskinner, have about the same meaning anywhere. Others, such as scraper and ditcher, may be used in reference to several completely different types of equipment. One machine may have many names. An outstanding example is the hoe shovel, which answers to this name, and to hoe, backhoe, pull shovel, drag shovel, ditching shovel, ditcher, and trencher.
This confusion exists partly because of the extremely rapid growth of the business and change in its equipment and methods, and partly because of the complete absence of standard reference material.
All (or almost all) terms used in the text that are peculiar to the construction industry have been defined in the glossary. The definitions chosen are those that seemed most simple, reasonable, or descriptive. Undoubtedly, many interesting and useful terms have been omitted, and in some instances there may be more appropriate meanings than those given. The glossary may therefore arouse more controversy than the text, but it at least represents a first step toward desirable standardization.
Most of the descriptions of equipment are based on specific current or recent models. In general, one representative machine has been selected for careful description, and others in the same class described according to their differences. In no case has an attempt been made to include the whole line of equipment of any manufacturer, nor to judge the respective merits of different makes. Because of changes constantly being made, some information may not apply to current models at the time of reading.
Machines have been chosen for description because of personal experience in operating them, availability of descriptive material and illustrations, or by chance. Such choice does not imply any recommendation of such makes or models over others listed or not listed.
Equipment is usually identified and indexed by manufacturer’s name and often by model number as well. This is not only a courtesy to those who so liberally supplied illustrations and information, but also serves to make the discussion clearer and more interesting.
All sections dealing with either the construction or use of particular machines, and with specialized work methods have been submitted to manufacturers and other contractors for criticism and correction. If any errors have survived this checking, or mistakes have been made in final arrangement of copy, the publisher will appreciate being notified.
Moving the Earth is a book about machines and their work. Therefore, comparatively little is said about the men who direct and operate the equipment, or about the hand labor needed to supplement it.
However, I am keenly aware that without the men the machines are nothing. Before there were wheelbarrows, men built roads and dams, quaried and transported rock, and drove tunnels. But without men, the finest machines can do nothing but rust. Without skillful operation, few pieces of equipment can justify their cost. Without maintenance, none can work for long. Without competent direction, all their work is waste. Lack of repeated mention of the men in and behind the machines therefore does not indicate lack of respect and appreciation.
Herbert L. Nichols, Jr.