at Apothecaries 1 Hall. 199 



cipal object of which, in all its branches, has been to provide the 

 public with pure and genuine medicines. 



Description of the Laboratories. 



The principal laboratory is a brick building about fifty feet 

 square and thirty high, lighted from above, and subdivided by a 

 brick wall into two compartments, the dimensions of the larger 

 one being fifty feet by thirty; and of the smaller fifty feet by 

 twenty. The former may properly be termed the Chemical 

 Laboratory, all the open fires and furnaces being situated in it, 

 and all operations requiring intense heat being there conducted. 

 The latter is usually termed the Still-House, all distillations and 

 evaporations being performed there, exclusively by steam, which 

 is furnished in a manner afterwards to be described, by a boiler 

 placed in a small building annexed to the main laboratory. 



Immediately connected with the above-mentioned building is a 

 chemical warehouse for such articles as are in immediate con- 

 sumption in the laboratory, above which is a small house for a 

 clerk, the whole being shut off from the laboratory by iron doors. 



The principal entrance to the chemical laboratory is through the 

 Mortar-room, which is forty feet long and twenty-two broad, and 

 appropriated to mortars, presses, and generally speaking to all 

 mechanical operations performed by manual labour. At its east- 

 em extremity is a large drying stove, heated by flues, for the 

 desiccation of those articles which cannot be dried conveniently 

 at temperatures easily obtained by steam. At the west end of 

 this apartment a room twenty-two feet by fifteen is divided off, in 

 which is an apparatus for the production of gas from oil, with 

 which the hall and its various departments, both externally and 

 internally, are lighted. Above the mortar-room is a gallery 

 fitted with shelves for various utensils and apparatus, opening at 

 one end into a room appropriated to the use of the labourers, and 

 at the other, into the Test-room, a small laboratory fitted up with 

 the requisite apparatus, for minute and delicate investigations, and 

 in which chemical tests and other articles requiring peculiar at- 

 tention and cleanliness are prepared. 



