A GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1682, 25 May 1904, Page 56

A GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOL.

THE MANCHESTER INSTITUTION. WHAT MODERN EQUIPMENT MEAN'S. • In the course of bis address at the Education Board Buildings on Saturday night, Mr La Trobe, Director of the Wellington Technical School, related some interesting features of the equipment of these schools in England. “While inspecting some of the most up-f;cKdate institutions in England/’ he said, “I was greatly struck by the thoroughness with which they are equipped. In some cases, indaed, it appeared to me that the amount of capital expended in apparatus was too great in proportion to the useful work done. But I invariably found that a large part of the attractiveness of these institutions was due to their magnificent equipment. ' "Perhaps the most extraordinary school in this respect is the Manchester Municipal School of Technology, which just last year entered into possession of its new premises. The main building 'g nearly rectangular in form, covers 6100 square yards, is six stories high, and overlooks important streets on all four sides. Standing thus by itself, majestic in size and architecture, the building Is a fitting temple of industry. The entire basement is occupied by lighting, power, and ventilating plant, and by workshops, and laboratories of engineering and the textile industries. It contains a spin-ning-room fitted with a complete plant, costing many thousands of pounds, where the various processes of spinning can be carried on in a commercial way, if not exactly on a commercial scale. There is also a weaving shed, provided with examples of the latest automatic looms. In these two rooms raw cotton and silk can be and are converted by the students themselves into all the usual commercial fabrics. When I was there, on one machine students were manufacturing cotton, toweling on another, longcloth on another, silk ribbon on another, velveteen and so on. "Besides these workshops, there are rooms for electrical testing, furnished

with dozens of dynamos and motors, of all ordinary types and of up-to-date construction; and fitted vrith all the instruments and apparatus necessary for making complete tests, either of the workshop or of a more scientific character. Altogether there are in the institution about twenty rooms, devoted to various branches of electrical work. A unique feature of the large electrical laboratory is a complete plant, full size, for electrio traction tests. The whole underbody of an electric tramcar, with the ordinary equipment, of motors, resistances, controllers, and brakes, runs with its wheels pressing on the rims of large flywheels. These flywheels are equipped with brakes, so that all the conditions of an actual street run may be accurately copied. The instruments required for making these tests are fixed and remain in position, ready for instant use, at any time. This complete plant cost over <£sooo. The basement also contains a complete electric generation station, in which five or six different types of generators and steam engines are used to furnish the whole supply of current for lighting, for power, and for testing throughout the building. The output at present is about 2000 units daily, representing twenty-five or thirty pounds worth of electricity used every day. Along side power station is a boiler-house with a very complete range of the most modern steam generators. During the summer, when the demand for light is small, some of the boilers and powerplant are available for experimental tests.

“On the basement there is also a 'large mechanical engineering shop, driven by electricity, and fitted up with lathes, planing machines, drilling and milling machines, etc., all of the best construction, and some of comparatively large size. Besides these machines, there is a fine installation of Brown and Sharpe’s grinding machines, capable of perforniing the most accurate work for standardisation purposes. There is also a machine testing laboratory, occupied at the present time by an 18in Whitworth lathe, with a specialty designed tool carrier ana slide rest, with which Prof. Nicholson is at present making some interesting experiments on modern high speed turning steels. The basement also accommodates a foundry, a well-arranged smithy, a gas, oil and air engine, laboratory, filled with representative examples, and a steamengine laboratory. This last is noteworthy, as it contains a 400 h.p. pair of horizontal compound condensing engines, specialty fitted up for research work. Theso engines have spare, valve gears for studying steam distribution. The cylinders are provided with thermometer holes for the study of cylinder wall temperatures by means of the Kallendar electric thermometers. Besides the main engines there are other smaller ones, and all the measuring tanks, etc., necessary for a complete scientific study of the steamengine. The hydraulics laboratory is on the same floor, and is fitted up in the same thorough fashion. “The ground floor consists of a series of rooms lighted from the surrounding streets, and entered from a corridor, which runs round the inside of the building. and is lighted from the two internal courtyards. On this floor, are the offices and lecture rooms, each devoted to one specific purpose, besides a large entrance hall of 4000 square feet and numerous laboratories, all furnished in a lavish manner, with apparatus. Each laboratory lias its own special purpose, telegraph" and telephony, physics, textile industries, electrotechnics, etc. The first floor is devoted mainly to lecture rooms and laboratories, hut includes, as well, an assembly hall and a reading room, a library and a scientific societies’ meeting room. The mechanical laboratory, situated on this floor, possesses a remarkably complete collection of copies of the apparatus devised by Professor Ewing, and first used in the engineering laboratory at Cambridge. "These instruments are now set up' in all up-to-date mechanical laboratories, and are found invaluable in enabling students to form clear conceptions of the fundamental principles of statics and dynamics. Many of the instruments de>vised for the same purpose by Professor John Perry are contained in this excellent laboratory. . ' “There are four large drawing offices, each capable of accommodating sixty or seventy students. There is a plumbing shop on the third floor, paved with wood blocks, supported on concrete arches, and furnished with modern appliances. Full-size examples of domestic drainage and heating systems reach up the walls from floor to roof, and there are facilities for doing every kind of plumbing work, and even for drain-laying on a comparatively large scale. Another remarkable feature of the school is a complete model brewing plant, of about four bushels capacity, which I am told turns out very good beer. In connection with the brewery is a bacteriological laboratory where researches in ferments, etc., are carried out by the students, and the different kinds of grain used m tho industry are studied. “Painting, design, printing, etching, lithography, these, and numerous other branches of industrial art are all provided for in the class rooms and laboratories of this wonderful school.”