Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/814

796 Both in the thoroughness of its equipment and in the interest of the subjects to be studied no laboratory on the ground surpasses the physiological. It is probably the only building devoted entirely to this purpose in America, and in the completeness of its equipment it surpasses most if not all of the European institutions of its kind. It has the ordinary complement of lecture rooms, laboratories, libraries, and study rooms. One somewhat novel feature in the lecture room deserves notice. The space behind the professor's platform is occupied by blackboards, extending almost entirely across the whole side of the room. The black surfaces, however, are at two different levels, that directly behind the lecturer's desk being slightly higher than the other, permitting it thus to be rolled back in front of the other half, disclosing behind it a screen of ground glass for projection. The work of darkening and operating in projection is done in a small room behind this glass screen, thus preventing all noise and disturbance of the class in the manipulation. Certain peculiar features in the arrangement of the laboratory deserve special mention: (a) a greenhouse of fair size, divided into two sections, is intended for the rearing of insects and plants, supplying the opportunity for extended study of phenomena of life in the lower forms of animals and plants, for physiology can never be studied simply from animals, vital processes being comprehended only from a full survey of conditions found in all living things; (b) a large aquarium for sea life; the proper stocking of this will be a matter of time, but the keeping and observation of marine forms are important; (c) a cold storage room for the study of polar effects; (d) an arrangement of dark rooms with heliostat, prisms, etc., for studying the effect of monochromatic light upon living forms. The first of this series of rooms forms practically a vast spectroscope. The light is thrown from outside by a heliostat of the greatest perfectness of construction. It is received upon a battery of prisms, which can be controlled by connections in the next room. The light, when separated into rays of the various colors, is thrown through a slit in a connecting door upon the support on which rests the animal or plant under experimentation. This is in a little room so related both to the spectroscopic room and to the hinder and third room of the series that no unresolved light can gain access to it at any time unless desired, (e) There is also a room for the study of the influence of high temperatures. These five special features are both important and novel. In addition to them there are operating rooms, rooms for experiments in metabolism, physiology, chemistry, ordinary laboratory work, etc. The two rooms where higher animal forms—dogs, monkeys, rabbits, etc.—are kept in captivity are supplied with cages of the best construction, and are carefully arranged