ADeimbeM906nj"}        United  States  Army  Laboratory.  561 
southwest  corner  of  the  main  building — was  the  mill-room,  where 
the  drugs  used  were  ground  and  pulverized  for  further  treatment  or 
final  disposition  ;  this  important  department  being  provided  with 
numerous  mills,  sieves,  etc.,  of  suitable  variety,  size  and  construction 
to  meet  the  requirement  of  the  time.  Immediately  adjacent  to  this 
mill-room,  in  the  one-story  structure  on  the  Oxford  Street  (south) 
side  of  the  building  complex,  was  the  laboratory  for  operations 
requiring  the  application  of  steam,  the  entire  structure  being  occu- 
pied by  this,  with  the  exception  of  a  space  in  the  northeast  corner 
in  which  the  engine  and  boilers  supplying  the  necessary  steam  were 
enclosed — a  space  over  the  boilers  being  so  constructed  as  to  form 
a  drying- room,  which  was  conveniently  reached  by  a  door  from  the 
mill-room. 
The  steam  laboratory  which  was  reached  from  the  mill-room  by  a 
descent  of  three  or  four  steps,  and  from  the  yard  on  a  level  through  a 
door  in  the  northern  part,  was  a  lofty  apartment,  possibly  18  feet  high, 
and  60  by  60  feet  in  area,  with  open  transoms  for  ventilation  and 
with  windows  on  the  northern  (yard)  and  southern  (Oxford  Street) 
fronts  for  light  as  well  as  ventilation.  This  department  was  under 
the  charge  of  Mr.  Henry  W.  Scheffer,  now  of  the  well-known  St. 
Louis  firm  of  Larkin  &  Scheffer,  and  was  devoted  to  the  various 
operations  of  solution,  percolation,  distillation,  and  other  operations 
necessary  in  the  manufacture  of  solid  and  fluid  extracts,  of  morphine 
and  strychnine,  and  the  preparation,  crystallization,  or  granulation 
of  certain  salts,  such  as  acetate  of  zinc,  Rochelle  salts,  alum,  lead 
acetate,  ammonium  muriate,  copper  sulphate,  etc.,  etc. 
In  the  yard,  in  close  proximity  to  the  northeast  corner  of  this 
steam  laboratory,  was  a  small  but  lofty  one-story  structure,  enclosing 
the  ether,  chloroform,  and  nitrous-ether  stills,  the  condensing  appa- 
ratus being  situated  on  a  platform  composing  a  sort  of  second  floor, 
freqt  which  the  condensed  ethers  were  conducted  into  receptacles 
within  convenient  reach  of  the  operator  at  the  stills.  Needless  to 
say  that  the  source  of  hea]t  ;  *nis  isolated  building  was  steam  from 
the  boilers,  and  that  flame  of  any  description  was  strictly  tabooed. 
During  the  first  period  of  my  connection  with  the  laboratory,  this, 
the  so-called  ether  room  or  department,  was  under  my  charge,  in 
connection  with  my  specific  duties,  the  operations  requiring  the 
application  of  direct  heat ;  but  later  on  this  department  was  given 
in  charge  of  Mr.  John  (?)  Pearce,  a  graduate  of  Yale  College  (or 
