Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/803

Rh of these seventeen buildings upon the campus, eight are specifically buildings for scientific purposes—Kent Chemical Laboratory, Ryerson Physical Laboratory, the four new Hull Biological Laboratories, Walker Museum, and Haskell Oriental Museum. All the buildings of the university are composed of the same material—a fine-grained gray freestone. Forming parts of one architectural design, all are built in one style, middle English Gothic. No two buildings are quite alike, but all are consistent, and produce, when taken together, a harmonious effect.

The Kent Chemical Laboratory was the first building devoted to science finished on the campus. It is the gift of Mr. Sidney A. Kent. In the hallway is a simple bronze portrait tablet bearing the inscription: "This building is dedicated to a fundamental science in the hope that it will be a foundation stone laid broad and deep for the temple of knowledge in which as we live we have life.—"

The arrangement and character of chemical laboratories are matters so definitely fixed by years of experience that few points of detail in reference to any one deserve mention. The Kent Laboratory is, however, well equipped for its work. In the basement are gas furnaces, seven in number, with air blasts for giving high temperatures. The ground floor contains lecture room, room for gas analysis, and rooms for advanced work in organic preparations. A chemical museum has been begun here which is to be greatly developed later. The second floor is devoted to research work and organic chemistry. Upon it also are the chemical library, combustion room, and sealed-tube room. Upon the third floor are the general laboratories for beginners, rooms for quantitative and qualitative analysis, dark room, etc. There are, of course, the usual store rooms and a balance room. In the building are six private laboratories for instructors, each completely fitted out. The head Professor in Chemistry, John Ulric Nef, has an excellent corps of helpers—Alexander Smith, Felix Lengfeld, Julius Stieglitz, and Richard S. Curtiss. The original work done by the force has been chiefly in the line of organic chemistry. Prof. Nef himself has conducted important investigations upon