have gathered from other sources a number of original features have been added.

The main lecture room is on the first floor (Room 26). The seats are arranged amphitheater-like. About two hundred can be seated comfortably, and fifty or seventy-five more can be crowded in. Back of the lecture table is a commodious hood, the front of which can be closed by a glass sash, and in which experiments evolving disagreeable or poisonous gases can be performed in full view of the class. When the hood is not in use a blackboard can be drawn down in front of it. The details of the equipment of the lecture tables will not be entered into, and at present are not complete. This lecture-room, while good in most respects, has the drawback of not being sufficiently lighted. This was occasioned by the raising of the seats toward the rear and the consequent shortening of the windows on the east side, but the windows might easily have extended to the floor on that side and thus material addition to the illumination have been secured.

The other classroom (Room 27) is a better lighted room, but the seats are all on the same level. There is no hood in connection with the lecture table, and the latter is smaller than in the main lecture-room but is equipped equally as well.

The main laboratories, those used in the first year of chemistry, are on the second floor, extending the whole length of the east wing of the building. They will accommodate one hundred thirty-eight students at one time. The two partitions consist largely of glass windows, which can be raised or lowered as the circumstances dictate. By means of these and the doors in the aisles the middle laboratory can be used with either of the end ones, the three may be used separately or all of them together. By taking the doors off and raising the windows of the partitions, two adjacent laboratories are put in as perfect and convenient communication as if the partition had no existence. This feature is original with this laboratory. By the side of these three laboratories, and with a door opening into each, is the preparation room in which the apparatus and chemicals used on this floor are stored and the department work in connection with these laboratories performed. The walls of all sides of these laboratories carry ventilating flues, which are connected with hoods in which experiments with disagreeable or poisonous substances are performed. As yet only about one-fourth of these hoods have been constructed because of lack of funds, but the flues are there and contribute to the ventilation of the laboratories.

In the basement the laboratory for more advanced work is located. This accommodates forty-eight students at one time, or twenty-four if they be allowed, as they should, twice as much table space as students in the beginning chemistry. This room is at present equipped but little more than the other laboratories, but in the near future it is expected that apparatus for special operations and analysis will be set up along the north and west sides, and will include steam drying-ovens, extraction apparatus, apparatus for electrolytic analysis, apparatus for the determination of nitrogen, and others too bulky or costly to be provided at each student's place.

Adjacent to the north laboratory is room 64. This was designed originally to be used as a museum, but the inadequate laboratory space make it necessary to take this for certain of the experiments in general chemistry, especially the quantitative experiments requiring the use of delicate balances and the measurement of gases. This room is still entirely without equipment.

The balance room (Room 5) adjacent to the advanced laboratory has at present seven analytical balances in it. These rest on a heavy stone shelf, which is set in the most massive stone wall in the building, and is entirely free from vibration, being in the basement. It will also be a small matter, as conditions require it in the near future, to build up piers along the other side of the room to support additional stone shelving. We believe no better means of supporting balances has ever been used.

The laboratory tables for students' use accommodate eight students at once-four on each side. A lead lined drain-trough runs the entire length of the middle of the table, emptying into a large sink at one end. The water pipes and gas-pipes are installed over this drain-trough and are supported with it by iron braces fastened to the floor. The two halves of the table each side of the trough are joined to it water-tight. Thus a gas and water supply is directly in front of each student, and a large sink and larger water-supply convenient for use in common by all the students at one table.

The sinks are of cast-iron, fourteen by thirty-two inches and fourteen inches deep, and were made by the Mechanical Department of the College. The drain pipes are protected from obstruc-. tion by solid matter by means of a perforated outlet in the sinks. This consists of a one-inch iron pipe screwed in vertically, capped at the top and perforated freely on the side. By this arrangement filter paper or other material which might float over a flat outlet can close only the lower holes, leaving the others free to

carry off drainage. We have found it advantageous to surround this pipe outlet with a cylinder of coarse wire gauze, as otherwise the smaller perforations in the pipe are too frequently clogged. By this arrangement the smallest passage-way in the whole drainage system is in this perforated outlet, and match stumps and

FLOOR PLAN OF THE OLD CHEMISTRY BUILDING.

An old cut which does not show laboratory desks installed later in C and F. At the time of its destruction, A was the lecture-room, B and C the main laboratory, F the laboratory for advanced and Experiment Station work, E the museum, G the balance room, and H and I offices and library.

other solid material that can pass into this pipe can never lodge farther along. We have thus far had no trouble with this drainage system, and after years of difficulty with others are in a position to appreciate present advantages.

The gas and water-pipes are utilized as supports for apparatus. By means of a special iron block attachment, extension rings, clamps, funnel supports, etc., can be firmly supported. In this same block, rods can be placed which are first brought forward then upward, thus giving a vertical rod support to which the laboratory equipment can be attached as in the case of the ordinary ring stands. The apparatus is supported in perfect secu

A Private Laboratory, showing utilization of gas- and water-pipes in supporting apparatus.

rity, and far more readily than in the ordinary manner, without resting upon the table top at all. One of the accompanying cuts illustrates this means of support in one of the private laboratories, and the same system is employed throughout the department.

The table space assigned to each student is three and one-half feet long by twenty-seven inches deep, under which is a cupboard and four drawers. In case of necessity, two of these drawers can be assigned to one student and two to another, but the two would use the cupboard in common. By inside arrangements, each set of two drawers may be locked separately from the other set. The cupboard door is fastened by a high-grade lock with duplicate keys, one of which can be issued to each of two students if necessary. The locks are master-keyed so that the officers of the department have convenient access to any place at any time. When not in use, the reagent bottles are put away in the cupboard or drawers, all other apparatus issued to the individual student. In this way the laboratory is kept neat and the apparatus free from dust. There is as yet no shelving above the tables, but if found necessary this can be added at any time. The reagent bottles stand in supports made by boring holes nearly through a one and one. fourth inch board, the diameter of the hole being large enough to allow the bottle to stand in it as in a socket. Two of these block supports hold twenty-four four-ounce reagent bottles and enable them to be transferred from the drawer to the table and kept in order with a minimum of trouble.

There being no gas-works in Manhattan, the department obtains its gas supply from gasoline. A combination gas machine and carburetter, with an automatic mixing regulator, furnishes an almost uniform quality of gas, superior in some respects to coal gas, though more expensive..

The laboratories are furnished with an ample supply of distilled water, piped from a tank having a capacity of one hundred twentyfive gallons. The reservoir is of copper, doubly coated, with tin on the inside, and the water is conveyed through block tin pipes. The distilled water is prepared by condensing live steam obtained from the power boiler of the Heat and Power Department. It is liquefied by a condenser of special design devised by the writer and constructed by the Mechanical Department and a local tinner. A view of this condenser accompanies this article. The head of the condenser, A, is of tin-lined copper surrounded by a wooden box. Through one end of this box pass six block tin tubes one and one-fourth inches in internal diameter. These are

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