Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/717

LABORATORY. building. Suitable brackets firmly fastened to brick walls furnish supports for the more sensitive apparatus, and convenient sinks and water and gas piping and electric fittings are provided, in most colleges and universities, however, these elementary laboratories are in the same building as research laboratories for the staff and advanced students, and as a result they contain many features not absolutely essential for work of this description. In building physical laboratories for research work, every other consideration is, or should be, sacrificed to direct utility. Stone piers on which such instruments as galvanometers are set are independently founded and carried up through one or more floors, without any connection whatsoever with other parts of the building. Stone tables or slabs for similar purposes are built in the brick structural walls of the building. High towers for experiments with pendulums, pressures of liquids, and falling bodies are another feature of a modern laboratory, and in most cases they, too, are built on an independent foundation. The building is usually arranged so that it has the best possible light, especially as regards direct sunlight. For certain work electrical or other power is desirable, and a system of pipes, wiring, and shafting is carried about the building. Another feature is a constant-temperature room in the cellar, usually where the astronomical clocks and other instruments which must be maintained at or near the same temperature the year around are installed. In short, the greatest care is observed in adapting the building for its use as a place of research, and every convenience is placed at the disposal of the student. It must be stated, however, that many physicists do not altogether approve of such refinements of laboratory construction, and think that the ability to overcome difficulties is a valuable part of the training. Furthermore, the very nature of the refinements may in some cases constitute serious causes of error. For example, an independent tower or pier may act as an inverted pendulum and have a period of vibration of its own. But be this as it may, it is undoubtedly true that at the German universities, where the greatest facilities have been introduced into the buildings and are put at the disposal of the students, the best work is carried on. The laboratory belonging to the University at Strassburg, and that of the Polytechnikum at Zurich, are typical of the best progress in modern laboratory construction, although Berlin and a number of other German universities are not far behind.

But important physical research has also been carried on in laboratories outside of educational institutions, and the more celebrated of these deserve brief mention. The laboratory of the Royal Institution in London was founded in 1800 by Count Rumford, and although the original intention of its founder was the furtherance of applied science, it soon became the home of the most brilliant and original investigations in the realm of pure science, carried on by such men as Sir Humphry Davy, Faraday, Tyndall, Rayleigh, and Dewar. In 1896 the research facilities of the Royal Institution were increased by the opening of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory, which has been most successfully conducted by Lord Rayleigh and Prof. James Dewar. In Germany the most important work has been carried on at the Reichsanstalt, or physico-technical institution, at Charlottenburg, near Berlin. Through the munificence of Werner Siemens, who in 1884 gave about $125,000 to the institution, and through appropriations by the Reichstag, suitable buildings were erected, and from 1888 to 1894 the laboratory was directed by Helmholtz. The influence of the Reichsanstalt on industrial conditions in Germany has been most valuable. Various standards are here made, instruments are calibrated, and certificates which have a worldwide acceptance are given to the apparatus which complies with the standards of the bureau. Technical research is also carried on, and many valuable papers are published from time to time from the bureau. Various instruments of glass are examined, and the work of the Germans in this field has been raised to a high degree of excellence, with the result that the manufacture of optical instruments has greatly increased. The same holds true in the case of electrical apparatus, and the standards of resistance and other apparatus also have been made of a high grade of precision. In Paris there is the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. With the purchase of a physical cabinet, a department of physics was organized in 1829, which has since been increased and developed, and furnished a home for important researches. Perhaps the most celebrated laboratory in France is the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, organized in 1875 by the cooperation of eighteen different nations. Here are prepared for distribution to the subscribing nations the various metric standards of length and mass; the meter and kilogram of the archives with which the secondary or natural standards have been compared are preserved. In this laboratory are carried on the most elaborate comparisons of standards and instruments, and the work of this bureau has been invaluable to workers in science in many departments. A national physical laboratory was established in Great Britain during the closing years of the nineteenth century, and to it in 1900 was given a building and site near London, its control being given to the Royal Society. Here a beginning has been made of supplying means for important physical investigations, and the equipment is being rapidly increased. In the United States, in 1901, the National Bureau of Standards was established by act of Congress, approved March 3, 1901; it is designed to possess a similar function to the Reichsanstalt and the National Physical Laboratory of England. In 1903 a building was being erected for the laboratory of this bureau, and active plans had been made for its investigations. By law it is given the custody of the national standards, and will issue secondary standards for the use of industrial and scientific workers. So valuable and important has been the work of similar institutions in Europe that the National Bureau of Standards was demanded by united scientific and manufacturing interests.

. The success which has attended chemical, physical, and other laboratories organized either for instruction or research has led to the establishment of engineering laboratories in which the student is taught to apply himself particularly to such problems as he would encounter in the actual practice of his profession. Such laboratories are also used by advanced workers to study experimentally such difficulties as are encountered in daily life, with the hope of finding simpler and more