AbstractsEarth & Environmental Science

"The earliest history of the rock drill is obscure and only fragmentary evidence concerning it is recorded in the Patent Office. However, no other tool has played a more important part in mining and excavating work. There have been two general classes of pneumatic rock drills  – the reciprocating, or piston machine, and the hammer drill. Fowler played an important part in the early development of piston machines, and the first hammer drill was made in about 1895 by a man named Brothers" – History, p. 1.