64 



NATURE 



[November 17, 1904 



1 



ment floors are asphalte on a bed of concrete resting on 

 the continuous rock which is the foundation of the whole 

 building. All the upper floors are fire-proof ; they consist 

 of a bed of concrete which encases a lattice-work of steel 

 girders, and supports a layer of coke breeze, upon which 

 tongued and grooved pitch-pine boards are stuck down with 

 bitumen and nailed. The resulting surface is both noise- 

 less and steady, and the whole building is made very rigid 

 by the girders employed. 



In the basement there is a large workshop, fully fitted 

 with machine tools, store-rooms, a room containing a liquid 

 air plant, a furnace room, an accumulator room, a room 

 for the custody and comparison of standards, and a number 

 of research rooms in which extra steadiness, complete 

 darkness, or constancy of temperature can be respectively 

 secured. 



On the ground floor, close to the entrance hall and cloak- 

 rooms, are the doors of the large lecture theatre, a smaller 

 class-room, and a large laboratory for elementary students. 

 This floor also contains the preparation room, the apparatus 



Fig I — The George Holl Physics Laboratory, Liverpool. 



room, and a sitting-room, office, and private laboratory (or 

 the professor. 



The first floor is set apart for the teaching of senior 

 students. It contains two large students' laboratories, four 

 smaller rooms suitable for optical and acoustical experi- 

 ments, a students' workshop, a library, and two sitting- 

 rooms for demonstrators. 



The second floor consists almost entirely of research rooms 

 of various sizes. Of these some are designed for special 

 purposes, such as spectroscopy, but the majority are planned 

 so as to be adaptable to as great a variety of needs as 

 possible. 



A photographic dark room is provided on each floor; that 

 in connection with the preparation room is adapted for the 

 making of lantern slides and enlargements. There is also 

 a small observatory on the roof, containing a four-inch 

 equatorial telescope. 



An electrically driven lift, working in the centre of a 

 tower, is available for the conveyance of heavy apparatus 

 from floor to floor. It can also be used to give access for 



NO. 1829, VOL. 71] 



experimental purposes to all points of two vertical walls 

 which extend to the full height of the tower, about 75 feet. 

 In another part of the laboratory access over a horizontal 

 distance, about 90 feet, nearly equal to the whole length 

 of the building, is secured. 



The rooms are heated by low pressure hot water, and 

 are ventilated by an exhaust fan in the roof. They are 

 adequately supplied with gas, with sinks to which hot and 

 cold water are led, with electric power from the corporation 

 mains, and with wires from a switch-board in the basement 

 to which the accumulators are connected. The wiring is 

 run in wood casing on the surface of the walls ; all pipes 

 are fully exposed, and, wherever a floor or wall is pierced, 

 an opening is left through which further permanent or 

 temporary connections can be made as required. 



The apparatus and preparation rooms have galleries round 

 them, so that their whole wall-space is rendered available 

 for cupboards and drawers. Special devices have been 

 adopted for the ready darkening of the lecture theatre, and 

 for the provision of rigid points of attachment above the 

 whole length of the lecture table. The counter-shafting in 

 the workshop is supported so as to be entirely independent 

 of the rest of the building, and thus silence and freedom 

 from vibration are secured. 



The erection of the laboratory was rendered possible by 

 tlie munificence of a small body of donors, Mrs. and Miss 

 Holt, Sir John Brunner, the late Sir Henrv Tate, the ex- 

 ecutors of the late Rev. J. H. Thorn, Mr. Alfred Booth, Mr. 

 Holbrook Gaskell, Mr. J. \V. Hughes and Mr. John Rankin, 

 who together subscribed the sum of 23,600!., which by the 

 .iddition of interest has increased to 25,900/. The cost of 

 the building, with furniture and fittings, is 21,600/. \ sum 

 of 1200/. has already been spent upon machinery and new 

 apparatus, and thus about 3000/. is available for the com- 

 pletion and maintenance of its equipment. 



It is hoped that the general scheme according to which 

 the laboratory is arranged will prove favourable to simplicity 

 and economy of administration, and will allow teaching 

 and research to flourish side by side, not hampering but 

 supporting each other. 



"Sc-jj Medical Buildings of the University of Liverpool. 



The new medical buildings opened at Liverpool on 

 November 12 go far to complete the university school of 

 medicine in that city in a thoroughly efficient and modern 

 manner. I'hey provide accommodation chiefly for the sub- 

 jects of anatomy, surgery, and materia medica, the school 

 of dental surgery and the school offices, and forensic 

 medicine. There are four full floors to the building, and 

 the ground plan is of an L shape. One limb of the L-shaped 

 figure joins the fine Thompson-Yates laboratories opened 

 -ix vears ago for physiology and pathology. The other limb 

 forms a wing ending freely towards the north. In the angle 

 uf junction of the two portions of the building are placed 

 large theatres, one on the ground floor for surgery, the other 

 upstairs for human anatomy. The pitch of the benching 

 is steep, and the lighting is extremely good from a series 

 of long windows following the curve of the rounded anglo 

 of the building. In the wing, lighted by windows east and 

 west, is a spacious museum for anatomical preparations. 

 Above this is a large room for dissection, especially well 

 lighted from the east. An excellent theatre for operative 

 surgery forms a feature of the surgical equipment. 



In addition to the theatres, museum, and dissecting room 

 are rooms for a library, and for smaller classes than those 

 the theatres are intended to accommodate. In the front 

 portion of the building is the medical faculty meeting 

 room for transacting the business of' the faculty and of 

 its various committees, also for meetings of the veterinary 

 board which manages the newly started university school 

 of veterinary medicine. Next to the medical faculty meet- 

 ing room is the spacious room providing an office for the 

 Dean of the faculty. Xo effort or expense has been spared 

 in making the construction at once durable, well lighted 

 within, and handsome from the exterior. Admirable light- 

 ing has been secured throughout, even to the basement 

 rooms, which are particularly good, so as to provide a 

 much needed reading room for students. The erection was- 

 begun three years ago, and part of the building has already 

 been in occupation for more than a year. The architects, 

 are Messrs. Waterhouse, of London, who have designed 



