July i8, 1901] 



NA TURE 



28- 



already done, and will give the reader a capital idea of 

 the position of the workers in the Mycenaean field ; it will 

 also enable him to take an intelligent interest in the 

 labours of future workers and to appreciate the de- 

 velopments of a most fascinating line of research. 



THE SOUTH EASTERN AGRICULTURAL 

 COLLEGE AT WYE. 



THE new block of buildings just completed at the 

 South Eastern Agricultural College at Wye, Kent, 

 is to be opened by the Right Hon. R. W. Hanbury, presi- 

 dent of the Board of Agriculture, as we go to press this 

 week. As the College has been constituted a school of 

 the University of London in Agriculture, it may be of 

 interest to give a short account of this institution — one of 

 the most advanced examples of the development of agri- 



rangle, with lecture rooms, &c., on the ground floor and 

 students' living rooms on the first floor ; the chemical 

 laboratories occupy a further wing. There are two 

 lecture rooms, one a theatre with raised seats accommo- 

 datmg 150 people ; the drawing ol¥ice provides working 

 space for twenty-four students in such subjects as survey- 

 ing, building construction and farm engineering. On 

 the biological side there is a laboratory with working 

 space for thirty students, furnished with Swift's histo" 

 logical microscopes ; two smaller laboratories for the 

 professors of botany and economic entomology, and a 

 museum, of which the chief features at present are a 

 collection illustrating the insect pests attacking fruit and 

 hops, specimens illustrating the forestry course, patho- 

 logical specimens in connection with farm animals, 

 typical cereals, soils, &c. 



The chemical laboratories consist of a general students' 



cal Laboratory of the South Eastern Agricultural College. 



cultural education under the administration of "the 

 whisky money" by county councils. 



The College began work in 1895, and 's managed under 

 a sclieme of the Charity Commissioners by a governing 

 body appointed by the county councils of Kent and 

 Surrey, together with representatives of the Universities 

 of Oxford, Cambridge and London, the Royal and the 

 Bath and West Agricultural Societies. The buildings, 

 which are situated at Wye, a little village on the Soulh- 

 Eastern line between .Ashford and Canterbury, consist of 

 a nucleus built about 1470, an ancient collegiate founda- 

 tion due to the Cardinal Archbishop Kempe, with suc- 

 cessive additions made in 1S94 and the current year. 



The old buildings form a small quadrangle with brick 

 cloisters and include a fine and lofty hall, the refectory 

 of the original College now restored to its original pur- 

 pose, and a beautiful oak panelled room, which is used as 

 the library. The later additions form a second quad- 

 NO. 1655, VOL. 64] 



laboratory, measuring about 45 by 30 feet, lighted on 

 both of the longer sides of the roo:n ; it is fitted with two 

 double benches running longitudinally, reagent bottles 

 being carried on glass shelves down the middle of the 

 tables. The two benches give working roon for thirty 

 students, and other benches in the window recesses are 

 provided for special work ; water and gas are laid on to all 

 the tables, and there are two fume chambers within and 

 one outside the laboratory. Separated from the main 

 laboratory by a glazed partition is the balance room and 

 the larger of the analytical laboratories ; adjoining this 

 comes a smaller room reserved for gas analysis, titration ;. 

 &c., that require an acid or ammonia free atmosphere, an 1 

 next to this comes a room for the furnaces and for ether 

 extractions and other operations involving the use of 

 inflammable liquids ; in one corner of this room a drying 

 chamber has been built. 

 The College farms about 250 acres of ani adjoining 



