LABORATORIES FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES 4 



usually selected for them by the teacher. This is practically the 

 system prevalent in the German universities. 



The laboratory shown in the illustration (Fig. 23) contains about 

 sixty working benches. There is another laboratory of about the 

 same capacity on the same floor, and below it a large room, 

 fitted with stone benches, where operations on a larger scale can 

 be carried on which are unsuitable for the laboratories proper. 

 Here the worker finds close at hand the various mills for break- 

 ing up and grinding hard substances, such as minerals or the 

 products of furnace operations, with the machinery for driving 

 the mills. There are also compression pumps for gases, shaking 

 machines, hydraulic presses, centrifugal machines for separating 

 solids from liquids and drying the separated solid, beside filter 

 presses and drying ovens. There is also close by a furnace room 

 where operations may be carried on at various temperatures up 

 to the highest. 



The two laboratories on the floor above are associated with 

 the usual arrangement of balance rooms, dark room for work 

 with the spectroscope, polari scope, and photometer, and with a 

 library of chemical books. There is also a long gallery of com- 

 munication open to the sky, but supplied with water, gas, and 

 stone tables which provides conveniently for many operations 

 in which stinking or poisonous gases are evolved. 



Large lecture rooms, each with seats for 160 persons, are on 

 the top floor. 



CHAPTER II 



LABORATORIES FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES 

 t. THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF BREWING, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM 



THE British School of Malting and Brewing, now a depart- 

 ment of the University of Birmingham, was founded in the year 

 1899 in connection with the Mason University College, from 

 which sprang the existing university. 



Possibly some readers may be disposed to ask why such a 

 business as making beer should form part of a university, or 

 why a laboratory and a professor are called for in connection 

 with such a long- established industry. The answer to such a 

 question can only be supplied by a review of the history of the 

 matter during these later times. 



