AND MODERN PHYSICS. 73 



CHAPTER VI. 



CAMBRIDGE THE CAVENDISH LABORATORY*. 



Bur tho laboratory was not yet built. A Syndicate, 

 of which Maxwell was a member, was appointed to 

 consider tho question of a site, to take professional 

 advice, and to obtain plans and estimates. Professor 

 Maxwell and Mr. Trotter visited various laboratories 

 at home and abroad for the purpose of ascertaining 

 tho best arrangements. Mr. W. M. Fawcett was 

 appointed architect ; the tender of Mr. John Loveday, 

 of Kebworth, for the building at a cost of 8,450, 

 exclusive of gas, water, and heating, was accepted in 

 March, 1872, and the building* was begun during tho 

 summer. 



In tho meantime Maxwell began to lecture, finding 

 a home where ho could. 



14 Lectures begin 24th," he writes from Glenlair, October 

 19tb, 1872. "Laboratory rising, I hear, but I have no place 

 to erect my chair, but move about like the cuckoo, depositing 

 my notions in the Chemical Lecture-room 1st term ; in the 

 Botanical in Lent, and in Comparative Anatomy in Easter." 



It was not till June, 1874, that the building was 

 complete, and on the 16th the Chancellor formally 

 presented his gift of the Cavendish Laboratory to the 

 University. In the correspondence previous to this 

 time it was spoken of as tho Devonshire Laboratory. 

 Tho name Cavendish commemorated the work of the 

 great physicist of a century earlier, whose writings 



An account of tho laboratory is given in Aa/nrr, vol. x., p. 139. 



