18 CHEMICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION 



but a modest place with none of the appliances with which we 

 are now familiar. 



It was twenty years later before a laboratory for instruction 

 in chemistry was opened in this country, and even then it was 

 not either Oxford or Cambridge which took the lead in this 

 important reform. 



The first laboratory in this country opened for the use of 

 students of chemistry was provided by the Pharmaceutical 

 Society of Great Britain at their premises in Bloomsbury Square. 

 In 1844 places were furnished for twenty-one students. The 

 laboratory was a single apartment, the ventilation of which was 

 very imperfect, and as many of the operations required the use 

 of coke furnaces the place was full of smoke and fumes. Almost 

 immediately after this the Royal College of Chemistry was 

 founded, and for the first year or so carried on operations in 

 George Street, Hanover Square. It was then transferred to its 

 permanent home in Oxford Street, where a building had been 

 provided which still exists, and, with an additional upper storey, 

 contains the offices of the General Medical Council. The building 

 had a frontage of only 34 feet with a depth of 53 feet. 



The whole of the first floor was occupied by the Students' 

 laboratory, while on the ground floor were a private laboratory 

 for the Professor, a balance room, and a lecture room at the 

 back. The basement contained furnaces and a steam-boiler and 

 stores. 



It is unnecessary to pursue this retrospect any further, for the 

 example set at Giessen, when once the movement had begun, 

 was followed in all the great centres of instruction. But even 

 the new laboratories were very inferior in size and equipment to 

 those which have been erected in more recent times. 



The rate of progress during the last thirty or forty years has 

 been, very rapid, and stimulated by the rivalry between nations 

 and by the rapidly increasing numbers of students seeking 

 instruction, the buildings provided for the accommodation of 

 the chemical departments in the universities and modern colleges 

 as well as the numerous technical schools, have gradually 

 assumed more and more palatial features. The first important 

 step in this direction was taken by the German Government, 

 when, after the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71, Strassburg 

 became a German town. 



Possibly animated by the desire to placate the Alsatian 



