STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 3^)7 



purchased on the banks of the river, the gift of a patron, and the 

 engine hou.se was built luider the University Hall in a room 165 feet 

 long-, 100 feet wide, and 33 feet high. For this purpose, together 

 with great tunnels to connect all the ])uildings, the drains, cellars, coal 

 bunkers, and ground floors, more than 80,000 square yards of rock had 

 to be quarried. The machinery is driven by a 4,000 horsepower 

 engine, that requires 13,000 tons of coal a year, 4,000 of which can be 

 stored at one time. In order to protect the buildings from the vibra- 

 tions of the powerful engines, their foundations were all united on a 

 single wall base separated from the foundations of the buildings; this 

 had the desired result. 



The steam-heating apparatus is installed according to the so-called 

 direct-indirect system (that is, radiant heat and warmed ventilating 

 air), and goes through thousands of feet of pipe. The exhaust steam 

 from the engines suffices for heating the library and the University 

 Hall. Automatic thermostats regulate the temperature of all the 

 rooms. The ventilator drives 1,250,000 cubic feet of air a minute 

 through the building. Nowhere is it renewed less than six times an 

 hour, in some rooms twelve times. The piping for water, gas, com- 

 pressed air, vacuum, etc., is unusualh^ extensive, the chemical institute 

 alone having over 6,000 discharge pipes and connections. Equally 

 enormous is the length of wire conduits for light, power, telephone, 

 electric clocks, signal clocks, watchmen's time detectors, electric ele- 

 vators, etc. The cost of the machinery, without counting the prepa- 

 ration of the foundations, was $200,000, that is, $50 for each horse- 

 power. The power house itself under the University Hall, including 

 tunnel and coal bunkers, cost $350,000. The heat, light, and electric 

 appliances for the buildings still to be erected will cost $550,000. 

 The whole power system, therefore, will cost about $1,125,000. 



The entire power plant was most carefully planned and executed in 

 the highest style with regard to solidity and neatness. Tne subter- 

 ranean rooms are excellently lighted and are models of cleanliness — 

 the whole a work of art comparable to the power plant of an immense 

 modern ocean passenger steamer. It should also serve as an object 

 lesson for the technical department of the university. It is managed 

 by 18 men, who work in three relays of eight hours each, and receive 

 $10,000 in wages. Th«> annual expenditure for coal amounts to 

 $14,000.'^' After all the buildings are completed the expenditures for 

 coal will increase to $27,500 and wages to $15,000.'' 



The library will some day form the center of the entire university — 

 an excellent idea. It is situated at the top of a gently rising ground 



«They are not allowed to burn soft coal in New York, a police regulation which 

 would be very appropriate for Dresden. 



'jSee E. A. Darling, The Power Plant, of a University, with 27 plates and ligures. 

 Transactions of the American Socieltj of Mechanical Engineers, XX, 1899, pp. H(:i."^-724. 



