PnySICAL LABORATORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY. 95 



4.— ON THE NEW PHYSICAL LABORATORY AT THE 

 UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY. 



[Begun in February, 1887 ; handed over June, 1888.] 



By Richard Threlfall, M.A., Professor of Physics, University 



of Sydney. 



The question of money is obviously the most important matter to 

 be discussed before commencing any building. The first vote for 

 the Physical Laboratory amounted to £8,000, and this has 

 been increased to £13,000, for which sum it is expected the 

 building will be completed. As nearly as I can reckon, the cost 

 of laboratory building here is about twice as much as it is in 

 England. The Laboratory which has been erected must therefore 

 be regarded not as the best possible one, but as the best — as I 

 hope — which could be obtained for the money spent. It was 

 clear at the outset that we could not aftbrd any expenditure on 

 architecture, even if we had desired it — and therefore it became 

 equally clear that the building must be erected behind the main 

 front of the other University buildings so as not to disfigure 

 them. As we had plenty of ground I decided to have a house all 

 on one floor, having learned by experience how great is the 

 inconvenience which can be caused by having to carry apparatus 

 up and down stairs. Again I have long seen that a laboratory 

 ought to be constructed so that anything and everthing may be 

 done in any room. Unless this is provided for, there is always 

 the risk of having to do part of an experiment in one place, and 

 part in another. This of course entails waste of time, and this 

 I have regarded as the most serious evil a designer of a laboratory 

 can bequeath to his successors. In fact the whole of the arrange- 

 ments and appliances about to be described have been designed 

 with this single end in view. To construct a laboratory so as to 

 entail the least waste of time on those working in it seems to me 

 by far the most important thing. Who I wonder having any 

 laboratory experience has not chafed at having to spend valuable 

 time in doing little odds and ends of carpentry or metal work 

 with inferior appliances, or in trying to heat a furnace with a 

 throttled gas supply 1 In my experience experimenting is neither 

 more nor less than doing a number of small jobs ; ones thoughts 

 are always far ahead of the particular part of an experiment one 

 may be engaged on ; and hence the quicker we can make the 

 satisfaction of our experimental needs, the more efficient will our 

 work become. It is for this reason among others that I prefer 



