542 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



which were chiefly directed by other Professors. Of late years he 

 used to complain that there were assistants in Boylston Hall whose 

 names he did not know, — an inevitable but unwelcome result of the 

 growth of the establishment. 



The growth of the College and the increased teaching of Chemistry 

 by the laboratory method, made it necessary in 1871 to enlarge 

 Boylston Hall. This was done by adding a roof story, at a cost of 

 $13,500, of which sum Professor Cooke contributed $1,000 and his 

 father $500. Professor Cooke also devised all the improvements 

 himself, and zealously superintended their execution. For the uses 

 of the Chemical Department, two thirds of the roof story were avail- 

 able ; the trustees of the Peabody Museum hired the remaining third. 

 This enlargement of Bolyston Hall made it possible to carry all the 

 chemical teaching at Cambridge to that building, and, therefore, to 

 close the Chemical Laboratory in the Lawrence Scientific School. 

 This change was in part an economical measure, but was due, also, to 

 the desire of the Corporation to use Count Rumford's gift for teaching 

 the subjects of light and heat, and to make the Rumford Professor- 

 ship again a College professorship. The consolidation was naturally 

 a great satisfaction to Professor Cooke, and it was certainly an im- 

 portant step in the development, not only of the Chemical Depart- 

 ment, but of the Department of Physics as well. 



After the lamented death of Professor Jeffries Wyman in 1874, 

 Professor Cooke began the process of acquiring for Chemistry the 

 whole of Boylston Hall. The rooms on the lower story of Boylston 

 Hall, which had formerly been used by Professor Wyman, wei'e fitted 

 up for a laboratory of Organic Chemistry. In the summer of 1877 

 the Peabody Collection was moved from Boylston Hall to the new 

 building erected by the trustees; and thereupon the two large and hand- 

 some rooms on the western side of Boylston Hall were appropriated to 

 the Mineral Cabinet, which had long outgrown its narrow quarters. 

 The rearrangement of this collection made manifest the results of 

 Professor Cooke's well directed and unremitting exertions for twenty- 

 six years. The collection had become not only an effective instrument 

 of instruction, but a beautiful and impressive representation of the 

 mineral kingdom, unusually complete, and of large money value. 

 From this date Professor Cooke had possession of the whole of 

 Boylston Hall, except that a lecture room on the western end was 

 still used for miscellaneous purposes. In 1887 this lecture room was 

 converted into a laboratory for elementary experimental Chemistry, — 

 again both planning and executing being Professor Cooke's. His 



