24 CHEMICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION 



Entering on the ground floor the corridor leads past a lecture 

 room, workshop, and a storeroom, to the refractory materials 

 laboratory (36 feet by 33 feet) and the analytical laboratory 

 (55 feet by 35 feet), with accommodation for twelve students. 

 The floor above contains private laboratories for the professor 

 and staff, and a photometric room, beside the large research 

 laboratory and the furnace room, which are respectively situated 

 over the refractory materials and analytical laboratories, 

 already mentioned, and are therefore of the same dimen- 

 sions. 



A valuable addition to the department of fuel is the experi- 

 mental gas producer plant presented to the college by Mr. 

 Robert Mond. The plant consists of a producer with the type 

 of grate introduced by the late Dr. Ludwig Mond, and from this 

 the gas is directed through washing towers and scrubbers, so 

 arranged with valve control that any degree of scrubbing can 

 be given that is required. The gas then passes through a tar 

 extractor, and finally through a sawdust scrubber. The gas is 

 now clear of fog and cooled to about the temperature of the air, 

 and after passing through a meter is collected in the gas-holder, 

 which has a capacity of 3000 cubic feet. The pipes leading to 

 the gas-holder and the connections are so arranged that it may 

 be filled with producer gas alone, or coal gas from the supply 

 alone, or a mixture of the two in any desired proportions. Town 

 gas being liable to vary in composition and from day to day in 

 pressure, the experimental gas-holder provides the means of 

 storing, at the beginning of a week, a gas which can be delivered 

 into the research laboratory at constant pressure and of con- 

 stant composition for experimental purposes during the days 

 following. 



In addition to the large holder just described there is a smaller 

 holder of 100 cubic feet capacity. This can be used for experi- 

 ments on the heating value of fuel gas or of mixtures of gases. 

 In this holder also may be stored single pure gases, such as 

 hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This holder is connected by a 

 f-inch pipe with the laboratories on the upper floor. 



The experimental work going on under these conditions will 

 doubtless prove of immense value in connection with the appli- 

 cations of coal gas or producer gas to industrial purposes. 



The department of fuel, etc., has been designed and arranged 

 by Professor W. A. Bone, and contains much gas apparatus and 



