182 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



THE NEW BUILDINGS OF CAM- 

 BRIDGE UNIVERSITY. 



On the first of March four new build- 

 ings were opened at Cambridge by 

 King Edward. One of these is a law 

 school; the others are for the natural 

 sciences — a medical school, a botanical 

 laboratory and a geological museum. 

 The great English universities have 

 found difficulties in meeting the re- 

 quirements of modern science. The 

 colleges were richly endowed, though 

 unequally; and they have suffered in 

 recent years from the depreciation in 

 the rents of agricultural lands. The 

 lecturers and coaches of the colleges 

 could give the instruction needed in 

 the languages and in mathematics, and 

 to a certain extent in other subjects 

 such as the political and mental sci- 

 ences, but they could not provide labo- 

 ratories for the natural sciences. The 

 universities were almost without en- 

 dowments, and they have been very 

 slow in coming either from the state 

 or from private gifts. In 1882 a com- 

 mission required the colleges to con- 

 tribute toward the support of the uni- 

 versity. In 1897 special efforts were 

 made at Cambridge to secure an en- 

 dowment fund, which resulted in gifts 

 amounting to about $350,000, rather 

 a modest sum, according to American 

 ideas, but sufficient with the other re- 

 sources at hand to warrant the erec- 

 tion of four new buildings. 



Geology at Cambridge had its be- 

 ginnings in the bequest of Dr. John 

 Woodward, who in 1727 drew up a will 

 leaving to the university his cabinet of 

 fossils and an income of £150, from 

 which a lecturer was to be paid to 

 read at least four lectures every year 

 in defense of the doctrines of the 

 founder. It appears that lecturers 

 were duly appointed who did not lec- 



ture, until in 1818 the office was as- 

 signed to Adam Sedgwick. In the fol- 

 lowing fifty-five years, Sedgwick made 

 Cambridge a great geological center. 

 After his death in 1873, a committee 

 collected a fund ultimately amounting 

 to about $125,000, to which the uni- 

 versity added about $100,000, and the 

 Sedgwick Memorial Museum has been 

 built from designs by Mr. T. G. Jack- 

 son. Professor Hughes, Sedgwick's 

 successor in the Woodwardian chair, 

 says of the building: "Skilfully de- 

 signed, and carefully executed, it will 

 enable us to display the finest educa- 

 tional collection in the world. This 

 was what Woodward aimed at in his 

 day of small beginnings, and what 

 Sedgwick worked for during his whole 

 j academic career. The great museum 

 occupies the first floor of both wings, 

 and amid the long series of specimens 

 which scientific geology has revealed 

 | to us, Woodward's ancient cabinets are 

 piously preserved in a small enclosure 

 I special to themselves. On the ground- 

 I floor are the products of the earth's 

 crust which are of economic value, with 

 a large lecture-room. On the second 

 floor are class-rooms, and private- 

 rooms for the different teachers, with 

 the noble library, the fittings for which 

 were provided by the liberality of the 

 late master of Trinity Hall. In the 

 attics are more rooms for research, and 

 large store-rooms where specimens can 

 be unpacked, sorted, and determined 

 before they are placed in the museum." 

 The building for the botanical school 

 is less imposing than the Sedgwick Mu- 

 seum, but appears to secure good effects 

 by its proportions. So far as can be 

 judged by the illustrations and ground 

 plans, it presents a good type of labo- 

 ratory building, with ample light and 

 convenient arrangements. The build- 



