REPORT ON CHEMICAL LABORATORY 79 



imperfect accommodation that about half of the students 

 have been forced to carry on work in the unsanitary cel- 

 lar, now called Room A. There is no space anywhere for 

 laboratory instruction in elementary organic or in technical 

 chemistry. 



Turning now to the needs for research : For organic research 

 the accommodation is fair, but not ample or comfortable. 

 For inorganic and physico-chemical research the facilities 

 are very bad, and for technical research there are no facilities 

 at all, nor is agricultural, sanitary, or biological chemistry at 

 all provided for in Cambridge. 



In precise investigation of atomic weights, Harvard prob- 

 ably leads the world. Such work demands well-ventilated 

 rooms, free from dust and noxious vapors of all kinds, for 

 these may ruin the purity of the substance to which months 

 of care have been devoted. Researches in physical chemistry 

 need rooms of constant temperature, free from vibrations 

 and changes in electrical field. This work is now so badly 

 provided for that it is greatly hampered. 



The lecture-rooms, which for the most part were designed 

 at the time of the first occupancy of Boylston Hall in 1857, 

 are now not only inadequate for the number of students to 

 be accommodated, but are lacking in ventilation, and are too 

 few for the proper preparation of experimental lectures. 



One of the most important needs at the present time is a 

 better provision for the administration of laboratory and 

 storeroom, a very important feature in the economical 

 carrying on of a well-conducted laboratory. 



When the present building was built, there were about one 

 hundred students in the required lecture and recitation course, 

 but few laboratory students. The number of the latter stead- 

 ily increased from time to time, and the other departments 

 of the University which also found room in Boylston Hall 



