36 
WAT ORE 
[ NovEMBER 12, 1896 
the building, which was completed in October 1895, is 
now being extended. The course of instruction covers 
four years: the-first year is spent in the main building, 
in a general course of scientific study ; the second is 
given up to physics, and the last two years are devoted 
to practical exercises in the electro-technic institute. 
The chemical school is housed in another separate build- 
ing, whichalso consists of two departments—the one for the 
study of pure chemistry, and the other for the study of 
chemical technology, electro-chemistry and pharmacy. 
The department for pure chemistry consists of three 
large laboratories for analysis and preparation work, and 
of a number of smaller laboratories for special researches. 
It has accommodation for sixty to seventy students. 
There are separate rooms for thermo-chemical, spectro- 
scopic, photometric, and other physical experiments, as 
well as rooms for chemical investigations connected with 
secondary and other batteries. 
The other side of the chemical school is mainly 
devoted to the study of electro-chemistry, and is equipped 
with the necessary apparatus and machinery, including 
continuous and alternating current dynamos, for ex- 
periments and researches in this special branch of 
applied chemistry. 
The foregoing sketch gives only an outline of the facili- 
ties for the higher scientific education which are provided 
in the Darmstadt Institute, the most recently equipped of 
the many German technical high schools. The attend- 
ance of students during the recent summer semester 1s 
given as follows :— 
Regular Occasional 
Departments. students. students. Total. 
Architecture = i 74. 13 87 
Engineering and machine \ > 
g 2c] 3 288 
construction ee | 2 37 ) 
Electro-technology si 307 23 330 
Chemistry... rE a 89 13 102 
General science 29 18 47 
850 104 954 
In the chemical department, 39 are returned as students 
in the electro-chemical section. 
The teaching staff for these 954 students might seem 
to us excessive. It consists of 27 ordinary and of 6 
extraordinary professors, of 22 demonstrators or in- 
structors, and of 22 assistants, making a total of 77. The 
students’ fees vary from £8 to £12 a year, and the whole 
of the deficit on the cost of maintenance is defrayed by 
the State. PHILIP MAGNUS. 
A VISIT TO AN ENGLISH WOAD MILL. 
REFERENCE to any old gazetteer under the name 
Wisbech will show that this town was once an 
important centre of the English woad industry. It is 
not generally known, however, that woad is still grown 
and worked up in a few localities, and it was with some 
surprise that we learnt that the processes connected with 
the manufacture might be seen in operation at Parson 
Drove, near Wisbech, at the present time. There are 
said to be three other places where the plant is culti- 
vated and worked up for use by dyers—one near Boston 
and two near Holbeach, in Lincolnshire ; but at these 
centres the introduction of steam power has destroyed 
the primitive character of the manufacture. As an in- 
teresting survival of the past, the mill at Parson Drove 
is well worthy of a visit. 
NO. I411, VOL. 55] 
It is hardly to be expected that a feeble tinctorial 
substance, such as woad, can retain a permanent footing 
as an English product in view of the circumstance that 
it has to compete with indigo, as well as with its modern 
coal-tar substitutes. The thought that this old-time 
industry, like the potash-making in Essex,! is sooner or 
later destined to become extinct, has led us to place upon 
record the information which we gathered during a visit 
to the Parson Drove mill in July of this year. We may 
add that descriptions of this mill were given in the 
Gardeners’ Chronicle in 18817 and 1882; but, as we 
obtained later and more detailed statements on the spot, 
concerning the actual operations as now conducted, it 
may be of interest to chronicle the facts once again 
while it is still possible to get particulars from the woad- 
men at first hand. 
The leaves of the plant (/satzs tinctoria) are wrenched 
off at the base by the pickers, the root being left un- 
disturbed, so as to permit the growth of a second crop. 
The first process consists in crushing the leaves to a 
pulp under rollers. The latter, of which there are three 
at the Parson Drove mill, are hollow, slightly conical, 
wooden drums, with about two dozen iron cross-bars 
arranged round the circumference, these iron bars 
furnishing the effective crushing edges. The three 
rollers are geared to a long projecting horizontal pole, 
which is made to move round by means of a horse. 
The pulpy mass resulting from the crushing operation is. 
‘then kneaded by hand into balls, about the size of cricket- 
balls, on a wooden stage, the balls, when made, being 
placed in three rows on wooden trays, which, as they are 
packed, are pushed up a sloping plank till high enough 
to go on to the head of a man who stands at the end 
to receive them. Each tray, as it is delivered, is carried 
to the drying sheds. The balls are allowed to dry in 
the air for about four weeks, and are for this purpose 
transferred from the trays to wooden gratings arranged 
in tiers in the roofed, open framework sheds, known 
locally as “ranges” (shown in the illustration). When 
dry, the balls are again ground up under the rollers, 
and the material then conveyed to the floor of another 
roofed -shed, where it is sprinkled with water, and 
allowed to ferment for a period of nine weeks. The 
shed in which this process goes on is known as the 
“couching-house.” The fermenting mass is constantly 
turned over by the workmen, and water added from time 
to time. We were told that the fermentation is at first 
very vigorous, the mass getting quite hot and steaming. 
At the end of the process in the couching-house the woad 
is ready for the market, and is simply packed tightly 
into wooden casks for sending away. 
The primitive character of the manufacture makes it 
not only of interest as a lingering survival of an ancient 
rural industry, but the antiquarian and lover of folk-lore 
may derive instruction from the mode of construction of 
the rough sheds, and from the technicalities used by the 
workmen. Thus the term ‘“couching” is used in a 
similar sense by maltsters, and is no doubt a Norman 
survival (Fr. Coucher) ; the sloping plank is called the 
“firm” (? form), and the tray on which the pulp is 
kneaded is known as the “balling-horse.” The balls 
were formerly dried on wattles, known as “fleaks,” a 
term apparently identical with the word still used for 
hurdles in Scotland ; but these are no longer used at 
Parson Drove. The central circular shed containing the 
rollers is built of wooden planks and posts, and thatched 
with a conical roof; the lateral couching-house is con- 
structed of thick turf walls, with the slabs arranged in a 
peculiar herring-bone form, and also roofed with thatch. 
1 See a paper by Henry Laver in the Zssea Naturadist, vol. ix. p. 119. 
2 The writer of this article acknowledges, as the source of his information, 
a recent paper in the Friends’ Quarterly Examiner. An interesting 
popular account of the mill appeared in Awst Judy's Annual yolume in 
1883. 
