154 



NATURE 



[December 14, 1893 



at a lair decision upon the questions raised. It is im- 

 possible for persons who are deeply interested in these 

 questions, and in the results of the investigation, to 

 divest themselves of all feeling and bias, and to judge 

 their own ideas and work from an absolutely impartial 

 standpoint. It would probably happen in any inquiry, 

 that if one of the parties implicated were allowed to 

 draw up the judgment, the result would not be unfavour- 

 able to itself. Most people appear satisfied, however, 

 iVat this course should be taken when the question 

 involved is that of the efficiency of the battleships 

 upon which the defence of the British Empire would 

 mainly depend in the event of war. 



Francis Elg.^r. 



THE NEW LABORATORIES OF THE 

 INSTITUTE OF CHEMISTRY. 



A T length the members of the Institute of Chemistry 

 -^~^ may feel entitled to cry with Proteus, " Time is the 

 nurse and breeder of all good," for now the object, kept 

 steadily in view through evil report and good, though 

 there was mighty little of the latter, has been achieved, 

 and the Institute of Chemistry finds itself in the posses- 

 sion of a house with offices, council chamber, examina- 

 tion rooms, laboratories for examination, and everything 

 handsome about it. 



The successive councils are to be congratulated on 

 the firmness with which they have resisted the numerous 

 and persistent attempts which have been made by a 

 somewhat important body of members to force the 

 institute into becoming a publishing and paper-producing 

 body, thus adding another to the already too numerous 

 chemical journals. 



The Institute was not founded for this purpose ; but 

 the fact was forgotten again and again by those who 

 were apparently unable to resist the temptation to spend 

 the gradually accumulating funds of the Institute on 

 " doing something," no matter what, but preferably 

 holding meetings and printing a journal. The councils, 

 however, proved wiser than some of their constituents, 

 and held to the true view of their function, namely, that 

 they were an examining and qualifying body. 



Upwards of twenty years ago the passage of the Food 

 and Drugs Act led to a series of appointments of public 

 analysts that taken in the mass were little short of scan- 

 dalous. The chemical profession had no corporate 

 existence ; it had never been consulted in the matter of 

 drafting the Act, and the Government of the day, though 

 having eminent chemists at command, never asked any 

 advice. County and borough, corporation and vestry, 

 were required to appoint '• analytical chemists," and, left 

 to their own sweet will in making the selection, with 

 results that can be more easily imagined than described. 

 It was this that literally forced the then small number of 

 men who were practising chemistry professionally, to 

 organise themselves with a view, not of undoing the mis- 

 chief already done, for that was irreparable, but of 

 gradually supplying a body of men whose qualifications 

 were vouched for by a searching examination. 



These examinations, at first held in town and at a 

 number of provincial centres, have gradually concen- 

 trated in London, and the increasing number of exam- 

 inees at length warned the council that the time had 

 come when the Institute must be able to examine under 

 its own roof. 



The presidency of Dr. Tilden has been signalised by 

 the carrying through of this project. After a prolonged 

 search, suitable premises were found at No. 30 Blooms- 

 bury Square, and the lease purchased. The House Com- 

 mittee, consisting of the President and Treasurer, with 



NO. 1259, VOL. 49] 



Prof. J. M. Thomson and Mr. R.J. Friswell, immediately 

 set about planning the laboratory, the architectural 

 work being placed in the hands of Mr. H. V. Lan- 

 chester. 



The immediately surrounding property being resi- 

 dential, it was of great importance to prevent any 

 nuisance from the escape of fumes, and the committee, 

 in view of the almost universal failure of most of the 

 fume apparatus in existing laboratories, placed them- 

 selves in the hands of one of their members whose ex- 

 perience as a chemical manufacturer led him to adopt 

 the novel expedient of treating the laboratory as an acid 

 factory, and scrubbing and burning the fumes, the latter 

 by means of a specially constructed furnace, which also 

 causes the draught by which the fumes are removed. 

 So far this arrangement appears to work well, and it 

 will no doubt be watched with interest by future builders 

 of laboratories. 



When the premises were taken over they consisted of 

 a house of 36 feet frontage and 45 feet depth. Behind 

 this lay a space of 60 feet by 36 feet, partly covered by an 

 old building, once no doubt a stable, and partly occupied 

 by an area and a built-out basement kitchen, which had 

 a very large chimney, built independently of the house 

 chimneys, and about 95 feet high and 18 inches square. 

 The old building being reinoved, there remained an area 

 of 34 by 36 feet for the principal laboratory, while the 

 basement kitchen could be easily converted into a com- 

 bustion laboratory, and its tall chimney — a factory shaft 

 on a small scale — utilised for ventilating the fume 

 cupboards and working benches. 



The house faces nearly due west, and this permitted 

 the laboratory to be lighted entirely from the north. As 

 it was not possible to erect a lofty roof, it was decided to 

 divide it into three gables, each having one side of glass, 

 the other, turned towards the south, slated and match- 

 boarded inside. These unglazed sides rise at an angle 

 of 40', and are so prolonged that the glazed sides, rising 

 at an angle of 60'', meet them at an angle of 80 , and the 

 entrance of direct sunlight is thus prevented, and, except 

 for a very short time in the middle of the day, at mid- 

 summer. The main laboratory, 35 x 32 feet, is fitted 

 with thirty-two working benches, and a desk for the ex- 

 aminer ; two fume chambers and one bench of muffles 

 being arranged at each end. It is lined throughout with 

 white glazed bricks, the floor is of 2-inch pitchpine, and 

 the working benches are of the same wood with mahogany 

 edges, and tops saturated with high melting paraffia wax. 

 Each bench has the necessary reagent .shelves, seven 

 drawers, and ample space with shelves beneath for the 

 storage of large apparatus. It is also provided with two 

 gas-cocks, a low-pressure water-cock, another for the 

 supply of a condenser, and one high-pressure cock for a 

 Sprengel filter pump. The sinks are circular, of salt- 

 glazed stoneware, and so arranged that each supplies 

 accommodation for four benches. Under each bench, 

 below the floor level, runs an 8-inch Doulton pipe (which 

 gives off 3-inch branches to each bench), and connects 

 with a 12-inch main which runs along the front wall and 

 descends to the level of the combustion laboratory floor, 

 where it enters a salt-glazed stoneware tower packed with 

 coke, and provided with a water shower. Passing up 

 this, which is 2ft. 6in. diameter and 13ft, 6in. high, the 

 washed fume is carried by another 12-inch pipe to the 

 ground level again, and enters the ashpit of a furnace 

 4ft. X ift., which has fire-brick doors closing air tight 

 against planed cast-iron rims. Separate 8-inch pipes 

 communicating with the 12- inch main go to each fume 

 cupboard, and when the furnace is alight a most power- 

 ful draught, amounting to about 12,000 cubic feet of 

 air per hour, is drawn from the benches and fume 

 cupboards. 



The stone muflle benches are each' provided with^a 



