CANADIAN LABORATORY

Evening Star, Issue 21038, 27 February 1932, Page 8

CANADIAN LABORATORY

HUGE BUILDING FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH At <i cost of more than £600,000 the Government of Canada has completed erection in Ottawa of a laboratory plant for the National Research Council, and it will be opened-, formally at the annual meeting this spring of the Royal Society of Canada. The Research Council has fifteen members,scientists of national repute, and-was organised in 1916 to form a connecting link between theoretical science and the practical requirements of and commerce, _ It has some notable achievements to its credit, although handicapped always by lack of adequate facilities for experiment and research.This handicap now has been removed by construction of a building where the council’s experts will have scope for their ingenuity and provision for tho most elaborate tests. The new laboratory building is 418 ft long 176 ft wide and 60ft high, of steel frame construction faced with sandstone. There is provision for a scientific library of 300,000 volumes. The engineering laboratory units are carried through two stories to accommodate largo .machines, and the electrical laboratory has facilities for researches in voltages up to 750,000. On the.main floor there is accommodation. for the council’s permanent staff _ of 120; _ A' feature of the equipment is the section devoted to tho testing of aeronautical craft and equipment, which includes a wind tunnel and a towing tank 400 ft long. Not the least of tho council’s activities is its encouragement of, scientific research in tho universities, and last year alone it spent £BO,OOO on scholarships to. that end. Since 1916 a total of 229 scholarships has been awarded, and a large majority of those who received this specialised training new are found in Government departments,university faculties, or industrial laboratories. The council, also makes grants out of the funds put at its disposal by tho Government to assist in carrying out researches in .Canadian universities, and last year spent £40,000 inthat way.