May II, 1893] 



NA TURE 



Our children must be properly taught at school and 

 trained to work as well as to play, and we must cease to 

 worry their lives at college by insisting on the study 

 of a multiplicity of subjects, and no longer attempt to 

 develope a Chinese system of examinations. Surely it 

 is time that we realised that our examination system is a 

 fraudulent failure. In Germany the victory has been 

 gained wholly and solely through the agency of the 

 Universities — here we are still dominated by influences 

 which had their origin in the monkish cell, and our 

 ancient Universities do nothing to help us. The 

 intolerant individuality which has enabled us to conquer 

 and to govern where other nations have failed is of little 

 use in an industrial war against the most systematically 

 instructed people in the world, whose weapons are scien- 

 tific research and scientific method, and who have been 

 careful to " organise victory," to use Huxley's expression 

 in his remarkable letter to the Times at the time that the 

 proposal to establish the Imperial Institute was under 

 discussion. Huxley warned us six years ago of the fate 

 that awaited our industries if we did not organise victory. 

 I fear that so far as chemistry is concerned our insular 

 conservatism still leads us to turn a deaf ear to all such 

 warnings, and that the only change is that we are six 

 years nearer to our fate. 



The following particulars are mainly taken from the 

 number of the Cliemiker-Zeiiung above referred to. I 

 am indebted to the Farbenfabriken, vormals F. Bayer 

 and Co., for photographs from which the illustrations to 

 this article have been prepared. I may add that I have 

 had the very great pleasure" of inspecting the laboratory. 



The opening passage of the Cliemiker-Zeitung notice 

 is very significant, and is as follows : — 



In any industry at the present day standing still involves 

 retrogression, and this is especially the case in the colour 

 industry, which has developed to such an extent in our 

 country during recent years, and which owes its develop- 

 ment in the first instance to the extreme attention paid 

 to chemical science in Germany at the universities and 

 technical schools. Whereas formerly, however, the 

 colour industry owed its progress almost entirely to the 

 schools and their celebrated leaders, of late years know- 

 ledge in this great field has become so specialised that a 

 determining influence can be exercised only by one who 

 is within the industry. Since the colour works have 

 begun to pay attention to derivatives of coal and wood 

 tar not only in the dyers' interest, but have also placed 

 them at the service of medical science ; and since it 

 has been recognized that the protection afforded by a 

 patent does not retard, but, on the contrary, promotes an 

 industry, and is therefore to the general good, and patent 

 laws have been introduced into (jermany, of which, 

 in comparison with those of other countries, we have 

 reason to be proud, competition has so increased that 

 all the works concerned are forced to make every effort 

 to prevent their destruction in the struggle for existence. 

 Consequently all the larger colour works within recent 

 years have erected laboratories in which a large number 

 of disciples of chemical science are unceasingly engaged 

 in the endeavour to meet the growing wants of the dyer 

 by adding to the already large number of artificial coal- 

 tar colours, not only with the object of producing colours 

 of increased beauty, but also to meet the growing desire 

 for colours of greater fastness, and especially with the 

 object of entirely displacing the natural dye stuffs which 

 were formerly exclusively used. These technical labo- 

 ratories are necessarily arranged with special reference 

 to the requirements of the industry, and therefore differ 

 in many respects from the laboratories at the universities 

 and technical schools which are used for teaching 

 purposes. 



The laboratory of the Farbenfabriken, vormals Friedr. 

 Bayer and Co. at Elberfeld, opened towards the close of 

 1 891, is the newest institution of its kind. 

 NO. 1228, VOL. 48] 



Fig. I is from a photograph of the building taken fronr 

 the street. The object in view was to provide all 

 necessary rooms for twenty-six chemists. In order to 

 make full use of the site, however, rooms for certain 

 other jxirposes 'were also included. The laboratory 

 adjoins the offices of the firm and the dye house, and 

 also the physiological laboratory. The new building is^ 

 3566 m. long and i6"i4m. deep. 



A large portion of the basement is fitted up as a store 

 for apparatus, &c., and is connected with the laboratories 

 above by a stairway and lift. Luxurious provision is 

 made here for the comfort of the staff, two rooms being 

 provided in which they can change their clothes, along one 

 side of each of which there are twelve clothes cupboards, 

 and a bench with cupboards for boots underneath extend- 

 ing along the opposite side ; and also of twelve separate 

 bath rooms with hot and cold water, and a lavatory 

 with twenty-four basins. The heating apparatus- 

 for the baths, and a low pressure steam heating 

 apparatus, are placed next to the wall at one end of the 

 building, and here also niches are constructed for auto- 

 claves — i.e. vessels in which materials can be heated 

 under pressure. 



The ground floor is 6 m. high from floor to floor, 

 excepting at the eastern end, where it is i'28 m. deeper. 

 The eastern higher portion is divided by a floor into two- 

 low apartments fitted up for experimental dyeing. Next 

 to this and beyond the stairway on either side of a 

 corridor are two rooms, 2 96 x 561 m., one of which is 

 a combustion room, the other containing balances and' 

 other physical apparatus. The whole of the remaining 

 space, 24'i8 m. long by 14-6 m. deep, is fitted up as a 

 laboratory for twelve chemists, and comprises twelve 

 separate working places, and two for large operations for 

 common use. This arrangement has the advantage 

 that each chemist has had placed at his disposal a 

 separate laboratory for his own use without the room 

 having been deprived of its uniform character. Fig. 3 

 is from a photograph of the laboratory. Fig. 3 represent- 

 ing one working place. 



The first floor includes a room 8'l3m. by 3'2i m. for 

 the use of the director of the laboratory ; a room 

 982 m. by 561 m. used as a library ; ' a room 561 m. by 

 296 m. for special use ; and a large laboratory corre- 

 sponding to that on the ground floor with places for 

 thirteen chemists. A gallery carried on iron brackets is 

 constructed along the side of this room on the outside 

 of the building, in which experiments involving the- 

 production of specially unpleasant odours can be made. 

 This gallery is approached through a glazed doorway 

 constructed in one of the window places, but experiments 

 going on in it can be overlooked from the laboratory 

 within, through the windows. 



The second floor is divided into two by a partition wall,, 

 one part being occupied by the printers engaged in pre- 

 paring the various labels, notices, &c., required by the 

 firm ; the other being used by the bookbinders who make 

 up sample-books, &c. 



The attics are used as store rooms. 



The building is simply constructed of brick, stone being 

 used only for the window-sills ; in fact, it is characterised 

 throughout by simplicity and solidity of construction. 

 The basement floor is cemented ; the remaining floors are 

 covered with antilaeolith, a clay asphalt which withstands^ 

 hot strongly acid liquids. 



The drainage water is carried away in open channels- 

 constructed in the floor. 



The electric light is used throughout, the large labora- 

 tories being each illuminated by means of four arc lamps^ 

 and the other rooms by glow-lamps. 



It has not been thought necessary to introduce any 



A Probably there are few, if any, libraries attached to educational institu- 

 tions so fully provided with the current literature and works of refeience as- 

 are the libraries at the chief colour works. 



