I wonder how many of the thousands who cross and recross O'Connell Bridge, Dublin, day and night, are aware that, when it was being rebuilt and widened nearly fifty years ago, an idea novel in engineering science was adopted. It was nothing less than the substitution of fully-packed sacks of the best Californian flour, instead of bags of cement, to form the foundation.
This was the outcome of investigations into the relative values of both materials to furnish a firm bed-rock basis made by the late Sir Bindon Stoney, the then engineer to the Dublin Port and Docks Board. He maintained, contrary to the views of many prominent men in his profession, that the flour, placed on a siliceous stratum, would prove a more cohesive and resistant material than cement. Time has vindicated his theory.
The Irish Times, February 19th, 1931