March 25, 1886] 



NA rURE 



493 



College, Manchester ; the Yorkshire College, Leeds ; 

 University College, London ; the Mason College, Bir- 

 mingham ; and the Merchant Venturers' School at Bristol. 

 As a typical school laboratory Mr. Robins has very 

 judiciously chosen that of the Manchester Grammar 

 School. We have selected for reproduction here, from 

 among the many sheets of plans with which Mr. Robins's 

 papers are illustrated, portions of the plans of the Central 

 Institute, the Yorkshire College (Leeds), and the labora- 

 tories of the Merchant Venturers' School at Bristol, as 

 types of institutions engaged in the work of teaching how 

 science is to be brought to bear upon the industries of 

 this country. In the Merchant Venturers' School we 

 have a building specially constructed for teaching science 

 to large classes of boys ; in the Yorkshire College the 

 arrangements, as regards science, were designed with 

 reference to the requirements of students receiving 

 specialised teaching, and who intend to pass into manu- 

 factories or workshops, or to become professional chemists, 

 physicists, or engineers ; in the Central Institute we have 

 the most highly developed type, designed for selected 

 students coming from the Finsbury College or from the 

 provincial colleges, and who already have a basis of 

 sound scientific knowledge, and are thereby fitted to 

 receive special and advanced instruction in various 

 branches of technology. A careful comparison of the 

 plans of Mr. Waterhouse's buildings, viz. the Yorkshire 

 College and the Central Institute, with that of Mr. Robins 

 erected for the Merchant Venturers, will serve to show 

 how the particular requirements of each class have been 

 met in the case of chemistry. It will be seen that the 

 number and relative size of the various rooms, their 

 mutual position, and internal arrangement of work- 

 tables, &c., are very different in the several buildings, 

 and that these differences are primarily dependent upon 

 the special type of instruction which is contemplated. 



In the next paper Mr. Robins deals with the fittings 



for applied science instruction buildings. Strictly 



speaking, the two questions of fittings and structure can- 



'lot be considered apart, for, as Mr. Robins very truly 



1 marks, " it is of the utmost importance in a truly 



j jonomic aspect of the question that the architect should 



I possess from the very outset a clear preconception of the 



structural provisions involved in the particular system of 



I fittings intended." The paper has especial reference to 



I the fittings of chemical and mechanical laboratories; it 



is singularly full and complete, and admirably illustrated. 



j The fittings of every laboratory of note have been well 



I studied, and the facts are so detailed that the merits of 



any particular arrangement can be readily determined. 



It is certain to be of the greatest service to any architect 



! engaged in the erection of this special kind of building. 



The last paper which we have space to notice deals 



( with the important question of the heating and ventilation 



I necessary for applied science instruction buildings. It is 



principally based upon details of the means adopted in 



I four of the most modern erections in this country, viz. the 



Finsbury Technical College, the Central Institute (South 



j Kensington), the Yorkshire College, and the Merchant 



Venturers' School. These buildings are characterised by 



very wide differences in compactness and in the relative 



j proportions of inside and outside walls ; and the particular 



modes of heating, that is, whether by steam or hot water, 



are also different. In some of the buildings the vitiated 



air is extracted by a chimney, or by a fan ; in others the 



j fresh air is forced into the buildings by a fan. Each 



I system has its merits and defects, and most of these are 



pointed out in the paper, or in the appendix containing 



the remarks made during the discussion which followed 



the reading of Mr. Robins's paper at the Institute of 



I British Architects. 



It will be seen therefore that Mr. Robins has treated 



I this question of the provision of buildings for applied 



science instruction in a remarkably comprehensive 



manner. The collection of papers is certain to be of the 

 greatest service to any architects engaged in the erection 

 of buildings of this class ; it constitutes, indeed, a sort of 

 vadc 7iiecuin to the building committees who may be 

 responsible for the selection of the architect's plans. The 

 cause of technical education in this country is under a 

 debt of gratitude to Mr. Robins for the service which he 

 has thus rendered to it. T. E. Thorpe 



A 



JULES J AM IN 

 SHORT time ago we announced the death of the 

 eminent French physicist. Prof Jamin. 

 By the courtesy of the editor of La Nature we are 

 enabled this week to give an excellent portrait, to which 

 we add a brief sketch of his scientific career, for the 

 detads of which we are indebted to the same source. 



Jamin was born, in 1818, in the village of Termes in 

 the Ardennes. He was the son of Anthony Peter Jamin, 



who engaged as a volunteer in 1795, was appointed 

 Captain and decorated at the battle of Friedland, and 

 afterwards retired to his native country. Jamin was 

 brought up first in a little school in the village of Vouziers, 

 and his father sent him to the College at Reims. 



At the end of the first year there Jamin had gained 

 nine prizes, and in 1838 his work was crowned with the 

 prize of honour in a general competition between the 

 Colleges of Paris and the Departments. In the same 

 year he entered the Ecole Normale Superieure, and three 

 years after, in 1S41, he came out first prizeman in physical 

 science. He was then appointed to the College at Caen, 

 where he succeeded Desains, whom he found later as col- 

 league at the Sorbonne, and survived only a few months. 

 At the end of two years he was called to Paris as Pro- 

 fessor of Physics at the College Bourbon. The following 

 year, in 1844, he became Professor at the College of 

 Louis-le-Grand, where he continued his researches com- 

 menced at Caen, and he received in 1847 his Doctorate 

 of Physical Science for a thesis, now a classic, on the 

 reflection of light on the surface of metals. 



The precision, elegance, and solidity of h'.s instruction, 



