160 LECTURE ROOMS AND LABORATORIES 



extreme north-west corner of the Garden, and the two Labora- 

 tories came to be next door to one another, with considerable 

 gain of space and convenience. 



At the same time a new Laboratory building of bad 

 architectural proportions,* and overtowering the old Danby 

 Gate in a manner that never would have been permitted 

 by the better taste of the Fellows of Magdalen of 1876, was 

 erected north of the wall, on the site of a wretched little study 

 which had been the Professor's only private room in the 

 building. 



The new building provides physiological and photographic 

 rooms on the ground floor, while above is a fair-sized 

 Laboratory with north light, and charming rooms for the 

 Professor and Demonstrator. The new staircase should lead 

 to the improvement of the Botanical Museum, which has thus 

 been made reasonably accessible for the first time. 



This is not the place in which to criticise the scientific 

 value of the researches which have been undertaken in the 

 old Laboratories of the Botanic Garden, but some idea of 

 their scope may be gleaned from a list of papers describing 

 them. 



If we had to make a selection of the most important, we 

 should mention the Professor's physiological researches on 

 digestive processes, and Dr. Church's fine morphological 

 studies of plant-form, to the mastery of which he has brought 

 a combination of scientific accuracy and artistic skill that has 

 rarely been approached, and that will appeal to all disciples 

 of Goethe, the Father of the science of Morphology. The 

 reproduction of his drawings, however, by the Clarendon Press, 

 leaves much to be desired. 



* This building has reminded us of Dodgson's uncompleted Syllogism 

 in " Celarent " on the new belfry at Christ Church : 

 The Governing Body would conceal this appalling structure, if they could ; 

 The Governing Body would conceal the feelings of chagrin with which they now 



regard it, if they could ; 

 Ergo, . .* . * ' ., (MS. unfinished^ 



