How Cement Is Shipped Cement is shipped either in multilayered paper bags or in bulk. Although little cement is now shipped in barrels, the industry has retained barrel-quantity as the unit for measuring production and sales. Empty paper bags come to the cement plant sealed at the top. A bag is filled through a valve at its bottom. The valve closes when the filled bag is upended.
Bulk cement is pumped through pipes into sealed ships, barges, trucks, or freight cars for shipment.
Primitive people used clay as a cement to stop up holes in their sapling huts. The Assyrians and Babylonians had no better cement than this for their stone buildings. The Egyptians made a mortar of partially burned gypsum. The stones of the pyramids were cemented in place with this. The Greeks used little mortar, preferring to shape stones for their great buildings so that when placed they were fastened there by interlocking joints.