Fepruary 15, 1884.] 
and an insufficient window: what scientific 
traveller abroad has not seen that working- 
place, where his predecessors labored at the 
foundations of our existing science? Is not 
each of its forlorn details examined with a 
curiosity which is half wonder, half pity? 
Yet in such places were made the commence- 
ments of modern science. 
Nowadays discovery has more seemly 
abodes. The great institutes which make the 
pride and glory of German universities are 
the models now being copied everywhere. By 
a guess we may estimate the number of labora- 
tories equipped and intended for research at 
four or five hundred. The modern laboratory 
is a really new institution, the evolution of 
which still awaits its historian. Its origin ap- 
pears to have been twofold: it grew, on the 
one hand, out of the museums; on the other, 
from the private collections of apparatus and 
materials belonging to the professors. The 
earliest museums were storehouses of curiosi- 
ties, but during the eighteenth century they 
gradually acquired a more scientific character. 
Not, however, until this century, did any of the 
museums attain great size; while the gigantic 
dimensions which a few, like those of Berlin, 
London, Paris, and Washington, have reached, 
are the result of very recent growth. Of 
course, special work-rooms have to be provided 
for those in charge of, or who come to study, 
such large collections ; and, since the majority 
of scientific museums are connected with uni- 
versities, the work-rooms in many of these 
institutions have become laboratories for stu- 
dents. 
A great many of the older scientific men 
now living, and of the previous generation, 
got their little and imperfect practical train- 
ing in private laboratories, which were the 
only ones existing in the earlier part of this 
century. Before long a few professors intro- 
duced, through their private energy, better 
equipment for the benefit of their laboratory 
students; and, when the demands exceeded 
their resources, these early enthusiasts ob- 
tained subventions from the university author- 
ities. As these appropriations were increased, 
the private laboratory gradually became a uni- 
versity enterprise. Thus, Purkinje established 
his physiological laboratory at Breslau; Mag- 
nus, the physical laboratory at Berlin; and 
Liebig, the chemical at Giessen. 
A good museum is very valuable, but a 
good laboratory is many times more valuable. 
Collections of any kind have, as such, a very 
1 Of course the original ‘ musacum’ at the palace of Alexan- 
dria was altogether different. 
SCIENCE. 
173 
limited utility, and even that only in very few 
sciences. The modern laboratory is almost 
unrestricted in its scope and possibilities. It 
is the most remarkable and influential creation 
of science in our time. It is a place well 
supplied with the necessary conveniences for 
watching and recording the special class of 
natural phenomena belonging to the science 
to which the particular laboratory is dedicated. 
Experience has shown that the appliances 
necessary for the exact observation of nature 
are numerous, varied, and costly : indeed, the 
thorough pursuit of any branch of science 
requires ample resources. Now, pure science 
does not lead to wealth: therefore students 
and investigators are compelled to rely upon 
the concentration of means and appliances in 
endowed laboratories to render their work 
possible. Association and co-operation, the 
characteristic social forces of our epoch, no- 
where achieve more important results than in 
these laboratories, in which are produced the 
majority of current contributions to knowledge. 
The expense of establishing and maintain- 
ing a good laboratory of any kind is far greater 
than is usually conceived. There are weights 
and volumes and temperatures to be measured, 
requiring delicate balances, graduated glasses, 
and fine thermometers ; a great variety of glass- 
ware, lamps, stands, etc., is necessary ; also re- 
agents, standard fluids, and the like ; next come 
the special supplies needed for the science to 
which the laboratory is devoted. It is aston- 
ishing how much like an assemblage of machin- 
ery the stock becomes even in those departments 
which require least. Next to be named js the 
material to work upon, which, in the patural- 
history sciences, is extensive, and las to be 
gathered from far and near. Finally, we men- 
tion as indispensable a small working-library, 
which ought to contain at least all those books 
that need to be frequently consulted, and sets 
of a few of the most valuable special journals. 
These conditions are more than folfilled in 
many European laboratories, but by very, very 
few in this country. The architectural condi- 
tions are, on the whole, of subsidiary impor- 
tance. ‘There is no more common or egregious 
error than to suppose the erection of a build- 
ing establishes a laboratory. In a handsome 
edifice something essential is often sacrificed 
to appearance: outside beauty is not indis- 
pensable to inside convenience. Half the cost 
of a building, given to endow the running- 
expenses of a laboratory, would in the majority 
of cases prove many fold more valuable. 
A good scientific laboratory —that is to say, 
one in which original researches, as well as 
