Abstract
I HAVE been greatly interested in the comments arising from my suggestion that the expansion of setting plaster-of-Paris might be due to the pressure exerted by crystals of gypsum growing non-isotropically in a not completely confined space1. The original suggestion was speculative, and it was made clear that it had no direct experimental confirmation. Undoubtedly, more direct proof would be required before it is accepted. But in pure water or in solutions of accelerators, in which expansion is greatest, the rate of growth parallel to the c-axis is some 10–20 times greater than that perpendicular to the c-axis, and a considerable relative increase in solubility would be required to make the rate of growth parallel to the c-axis negligible compared with that perpendicular to it. It is not possible to express this in quantitative terms, or translate it into a force; but while experimental proof is lacking, the suggestion cannot be dismissed a priori, and is at least a possible explanation of a phenomenon for which no reasonable alternative is available.
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