Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Connecticut, 



Subscription, $1.00 a year Single copy, 10 cents 



Entered as Second-Class Matter June 12, 1909. at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3, 1897. 



Vol 



VllI 



OCTOBER. 



Number 5 



A Well-Equipped Chemical Laboratory 



By EDWARD F. BIGELOW, ARCADIA: Sound Beach, Connecticut 



PROFESSOR Frederick H. Getman, 

 for several years professor of chem- 

 istry at Bryn Mawr College, has 

 decided to devote his time to original 

 research in chemistry, and for that pur- 

 pose has recently completed an ideally 

 equipped laboratory on the steep hill- 

 side in the rear of his home on Glen- 

 brook Road, and has very appropri- 

 ately named it The Hillside Labora- 

 tory. The writer believes that not only 

 locally, but generalh% there is keen in- 

 terest in this kind of work. For this 

 reason we publish the accompanying 

 photographs and this description of the 

 laboratory and its ecpiipment. Dr. Get- 

 man is well-known locally on account 

 of his active interest in our Stamford 

 High School as a teacher in chemistry 

 and physics. 



This Laboratory is a single-story 

 building, thirty feet long and twenty 

 wide. One enters it through a small 

 vestibule into a well-lighted office 

 where, in addition to the usual office 

 furniture, is a library of about five 

 hundred volumes bearing upon Physics 

 and Chemistry, together with files of 

 the more important chemical journals. 



From the office, a doorway leads into 

 the main laboratory, which is devoted 

 to measurements of precision. Near 

 the center of the room a marble slab 

 resting upon two brick piers free from 

 all vibration, serves as a support for 

 an analytical balance and a cathetom- 

 eter. 



hi this room are two stills, one for 

 the distillation of the city water, the 

 other for the distillation of the product 

 from the first still The distilled w^ater 

 obtained from the second still is of so 

 high a degree of purity that its electri- 

 cal conductance is only 0.000002 recip- 

 rocal ohms. 



Among other special pieces of appara- 

 tus in use in this room may be mentioned 

 a large electrically controlled thermo- 

 stat bath, capable of maintaining its 

 contents at any desired temperature 

 between that of the room and 35°C., 

 with a maximum variation of o°.oi ; a 

 potentiometer permitting direct read- 

 ings of electromotive force to hundred- 

 thousandths of a volt, and an apparatus 

 for metallurgical photomicrography. 

 An apparatus-case in the same room 

 contains other fine specimens of the 

 instrument maker's skill, such as a 



Copyright 1915 by The Agassiz Association, AkcAdiA: Sound Beach, Coin 



