NoveMBER 12, 1896] 
NATURE 35 
effected in the details of all the arrangements for 
practical instruction and experimental work. The build- 
ing was begun in February 1893, and was completed in 
October 1895. The cost of the entire institute, including 
fittings, furniture, machinery and apparatus, did not 
exceed £120,000. The cost of the main building alone 
was £46,485, which works out to about 57d. a cubic 
foot ; and this gives some idea of the apparently cheaper 
rate at which such buildings are erected in Germany. 
The main building contains the usual series of drawing 
offices—a special feature of every technical college in 
Germany—rooms for collections of various models, the 
engineering laboratories, class-rooms, lecture-rooms, a 
large hall, a library, and the administra- 
tion offices. The arrangement of rooms 
on the first floor, mainly devoted to 
mechanical engineering, is shown on the 
annexed plan. : 
The most interesting department of 
the institute is undoubtedly the building 
devoted to the physical and electro-technic 
schools. This is divided into two distinct 
sections—the one for instruction in physics 
proper, including electricity, and the other 
for the technical applications of elec- 
tricity. In the annexed plan of the ground 
floor, the rooms on the left of the central 
court belong to the physical, those on 
the right, including the annex containing 
the dynamo and motor machinery, belong 
for students admission to the State railway works, or to 
the machine shops of well-known electrical firms. 
The apparatus of the two divisions of the physical and 
technical institute is necessarily, to some ; 
extent, duplicated, and the more so, as 
the schools are kept quite distinct ; but 
there are some advantages in the two 
departments being housed in the same 
building. Each department contains 
separate laboratories carefully fitted for 
experimental work, and provided with the 
necessary apparatus and apphances for 
accurate measurements. In the basement 
° 1 x it ) 
i 
to the technical section. Each section 
contains workshops for the making and 
the repairing of apparatus, but these 
shops are not used by the students. 
Indeed, workshop training does not, even now, form any 
part of the curriculum of students at a technical high 
Main Building—First Floor Plan. 
of the physical department is a room specially fitted 
with double walls for experiments requiring uniform tem- 
perature, rooms for chemical and 
photographic work, an engine-room 
containing a gas motor, dynamos, and 
other machines. On the ground floor 
are separate laboratories for the Pro- 
fessor of Physics, Dr. Schering, and 
for the chief assistant, a laboratory 
Ground Floor Plan of adjoining Physical and Electro-technic Institute. 
school. They are required however, during their course 
of study, to spend parts of their long vacations in 
engineering shops ; and no difficulty is found in obtaining 
NO. I41I, VOL. 55] 
for magnetic experiments free from 
iron fittings, and other separate labora- 
tories for galvanic, optical, and photo- 
metric work ; and above this floor are the balance rooms, 
two lecture theatres and preparation rooms, and addi- 
tional laboratories for exercises and experiments in heat 
and light. 
The electro-technic section of this building has, on the 
basement, rooms for accumulators, for testing arc and glow 
lamps, for the testing of cables, besides the dynamo and 
engine laboratories. These are all carefully equipped with 
appropriate instruments and apparatus. Above are the 
private laboratories of the Professor, Dr. Kittler, and of his 
assistants ; laboratories for measuring the strength of dif- 
ferent currents, for magnetic investigations, for determining 
resistances, coefficients of induction, &c. The arrange- 
ments for lighting the lecture-rooms, and for the convey- 
ance of currents from different combinations of batteries 
are very complete, and give evidence of the thought and 
care expended on the equipment of the school. To 
each laboratory separate currents are supplied from the 
galvanic batteries and dynamos, from the main current 
machine, from the accumulators, and from the central 
electric station in the rear of the main building. The 
network of wires, which can be connected in different 
combinations for experimental purposes, has been fitted 
by Messrs. Schuckert, of Niirnberg, in whose works are 
found a large number of the students who have received 
their training at this school. 
There are already over three hundred students in this 
one department of the Darmstadt High sSchool, and 
