"I have learned more about, and become more fascinated with sand from reading this book than I have from studying beaches for thirty-five years! An amazing story."--Reinhard E. Flick, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego "A masterful, entertaining and accessible treatise on the complex world of common sand."--Bruce M. Pavlik, author of The California Deserts "To do justice to this formidable and glorious subject, you need not only to be in love with it, but also to possess tremendous breadth of knowledge, have the eyes of a poet, scientist and geographer, and be intrepid enough to have seen the deserts of the world at first hand. Fortunately, Michael Welland fits the bill. It is hard to see how this paean to the wonders and mysteries of sand could be bettered."--Philip Ball, author of Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another and Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water "A fascinating and colorfully written book filled with insights and wit about the magical material called sand."--Stephen P. Leatherman (aka Dr Beach), author of America's Best Beaches "Sand has given rise to commentary, both poetic and scientific, from the earliest human times. Michael Welland ably winnows this literature, making the subject of sand his base station for a journey around the whole earth system. An impressive achievement."--Andrew Alden, author/editor of About.com's Guide to Geology "Michael Welland offers a popular, imaginative, and scientific evocation of sand as the creator of the world we experience and seek to understand. Sand is a timely meditation on things both large and small that simultaneously opens the door to the oldest geology and our most recent history."--Joseph Amato, author of Dust: A History of the Small and the Invisible

The Amber Hot Sands is a fictional story that takes place in Pozzuoli during the reign of Emperor Titus (AD 80). The writers each portray a single character in a first person account. The story shows the five days leading up to a fight in the Primus between the two characters, Gratianus (Roman) and Mathos (of the city, Carthage). The Amber Hot Sands ends, ultimately, when the gruelling conflict comes to a bloody finish.

This report deals with pavement mixture designs and construction operation of field trials on U.S. 69 north of Lufkin, Texas. The binders used in this field trial consisted of pure asphalt cement for the control sections and 30/70 weight percent of a sulphur/asphalt emulsion as the test binder. All elements of the structural (thickness) design were produced in pairs for comparison purposes with the exception of two thinner sections selected to possibly show distress in two or three years. Otherwise, the thickness designs used in the test sections were those specified by the State Department of Highways and Public Transportation in the conventional section of this highway. Preconstruction laboratory evaluations of mixture properties and field laboratory control measurements are included as a part of this report.