Victoria College Laboratories

Progress, Volume I, Issue 9, 2 July 1906, Page 243

Victoria College Laboratories

By Professor Easterfield, Wellington. '

The importance of experimental science as a means of education is daily gaining in recognition, and signs are not wanting that in the near future training in the practical methods of at least one science will be regarded as an indispensable part of a liberal education. With much foresight the Victoria College Council has madp provision for the teaching of chemistry, physics and biology by the erection of a fine science building, photographs of which accompany this article. When the college began work, in 1 899, the laboratory fittings consisted of a few boards on trestles m a room provided with neither water nor gas. Spirit lamps were used for heating, and the students took in turn the duty of bringing m jugs of clean water from the yard and emptying the buckets which served as waste receptacles. A balance was mounted on a packing-case in one corner of the room. With this meagre equipment a few enthusiastic students became fairly expert in the methods of gravimetric and volumetric analyses. In ipoo two small rooms were equipi^ed in the technical school, Victoria street, one as a physical, the other as a chemical, laboratory. Though conveniently fitted up, it was evident from the beginning that the arrangement could only be temporary, as the crowding and lack of ventilation were at times a source cf the greatest

inconvenience ; moieover, the physical laboratory had to be used as a lecture and store room. The students were, however, of an earnest type, and it is pleasant to record that during the years 1900 1905 some fifteen original researches" were carried out in the chemical and physical laboratories. The new science block is an L shaped building, three stories in height, the smaller wing running north and south, the larger nearly east and west. The top story is devoted to biology, and includes a Jarge Lecture Room, a large and a small Laboiatory, a temporal y Museum, and a Private Room for the professor. The first floor is taken up by the chemical department, the most prominent feature in which is a large Analytical Laboratory, 4.T x 35ft. and 17ft. high. Each elementaiy student has a working-bench 4 ft. 6 in. in length with three gas and two water cocks. Most of the benches are supplied with low-tension direct current for electrolytic preparation and analysis. Ample draught - chamber accommodation is provided on the walls alongside of the benches. At the far end of the Laboratory is a "Stink" Room, 10 x 3^ft., in which all the sulphuretted hydrogen work is carried on, and in which occasional benches provide accommodation'for students performing work of an offensive nature. All drains are of the open v type, and are easily accessible.

The Research Laboratory ib a well-lighted room, 30 x 34. ft., arranged on the assumption that each student will require a b^nch 9 ft. in length. The general fittings are of the same type as in the Analytical Laboratory. In both chemical laboratories additional ventilation can be obtained by the use of electrically driven fans placed in the roof of the building. Between the Research Laboratory and Analytical Room is the Balance Room, 19 ft. x 11ft. The balances are mounted on slate tables let m to the wall of the building, and each instrument is lighted by a separate incandescent electnc lamp provided with its own swatch. On the wall opposite to the balance tables is a small library of reference works dealing mainly with analytical and preparative chemistry. The Lecture Room accommodates fifty students. The lecture table is 18 ft. m length, and is provided with gas, water, and direct and alternating electric currents. The 100 m is lighted by incandescent gas, so arranged that no direct light from the burners strikes the eye of either lecturer or students. Attached to the Lecture Room is a Preparation Room which also serves as a Private Laboratory for the professor. Adjacent to this is a small Museum of fine apparatus chiefly of a physicochemical description. On this floor there is also a Private Room for the professor, and a Photographic Dark Room, which also serves for gaS analysis. r ' Metallurgy is provided for on the ground floor in a room 27 x 20ft. The complete equipment of the room will include pot and cupellation furnaces, and probably an electric furnace of the Moissan type. The fireproof Chemical Store and the General Store are also on the ground floor.

There are three Physical Laboratories, the smallest being au Optical Room. One of the rooms is employed for general physical work, and the remaining one is chiefly intended for honours and ressaich students. By means of sliding shutters the three rooms can be put into communication, so that if necessary, a beam of light 60 ft. in length can be obtained. The physical benches rest on piles let into the solid rock, or are supported by the main wall of the building, thus reducing vibration to a minimum. As the physical 100 ms face the south and are within 30 ft. of the foot of a small cliff, no sudden changes of temperature are experienced ; at the same time the lighting is found to be satisfactory. There is a large General Workshop on the ground floor with conveniences for unloading vans and for unpacking goods. The Workshop contains a motor dynamo for charging the storage batteries, a turning lathe and joiner's bench. The complete equipment will include apparatus for the production of high vacua and for research at low temperatures. A lift for handling the stores completes the general arrangement of a compact and convenient building. Wherever possible the laboratory fittings have been made locally. The benches are of kauri with ebonised tops, and have been executed in evcellent style by Sanders Bros. ; the water cocks were constructed by W. J. Dutch ; the laboratory basins by P. Hutson & Co. ; the gas fittings by the Wellington Gas Co.; the plumbing by Jenkins & Mack, the electric installation by Cederholm & Tolley, and the ventilation by Ross (Dunedin). The building itself is of red brick, with white stone facings, and was erected by McGuire. To the architects, Messrs. Penty & Blake, is due the credit of having worked into concrete form

the ideas of the members of the teaching Staff thus providing at modeiate cost a building exceptionally well adapted to the purposes for which it is intended. The cost of the Science Buildings, above dcscribed is /io 000. The Arts Building cost 42* 000 As the criticism has been made that the expenditure on science is out of proportion to that upon other subjects, it may be worth while to devote a few paragraphs to this question. 1. Expenditure upon experimental science bears more directly upon the material prosperity of a community than any other form of expenditure. Chemistry, in particular, has a direct bearing upon every branch of commercial pursuit. Without experimental investigation no approximate estimate can be made of the resources of a country. It would probably surprise the uninitiated to know to what extent the modern manufacturer is not without interest to record that the list of Victoria College chemical students has included dairy managers, engineers, analysts, manufactuiing chemists, lawyers, patent agents, and a host of others. 2. Equipment foi the teaching of experimental science is of necessity very expensive as compared with the needs of other branches of education. It is doubtful whether much permanent good is done by any science teaching which is confined to the lecture room. To think clearly in any practical problem is, as Nasmyth has pointed out, "to form a vivid mental picture of the experimental conditions." Such a state of mind is only possible to the student who has learnt to think through his fingers. How difficult this is to those unaccustomed to attack difficulties by the experimental

method, can only be realised by those who have attempted to teach practical chemistry or physics to adults who have been brought up on even the best text books, but without laboratory experience. Whereas, then, the student of classics or mathematics requires to be provided with literature, and literature only, the student of science must be given apparatus and expensive materials, in

addition to literature of an even more expensive type than that required by the student of languages — I refer to the scientific periodicals. It is a common mistake that old scientific literature is useless, for in a modern investigation it is always desirable to turn up the works of the old masters and their experiences expressed in their own language. Unless a student accustoms himself to this habit

he seldom catches the true scientific spirit which rejoices in knowledge for its own sake. 3. The highest type of scientific education is that which is obtained from experimental research into unexplored regions. It is here that the lamp of enthusiasm burns most brightly. Drudgery no longer exists to the student who has caught the spirit of original enquiry ; to him a problem is as attractive as a patch of alluvium to the miner suffering from severe gold fever. How deep the despair if the problem fails of solution, how rich the reward if success be attained ' It is a matter for congratulation that the Senate of the University of New Zealand requires a thesis embodying the *esults of some piece of original research from students competing for an honours degree in most of the experimental sciences. It is. equally a matter of reproach that the science of physics is excluded from the research clause, so that whejeas in botany, zoology, geology or chemistry the honours graduate produces evidence that he can attack a problem from the experimental standpoint, no such evidence is required from the graduate in physics. The argument which has been brought forwaid that certain university colleges are not sufficiently well equipped to provide for lesearch is beside the point, if the institution cannot provide for lesearch in a particulai science, it has fallen below university standard in that subject, and should be accordingly disqualified, by the university authorities.

An order for 35,000 tons of coal for Manila has been received at Newcastle, N.S.W. Other large orders from the Philippines are expected. ****** An English syndicate reports that it has purchased a thousand acres of shale country near Latrobe, Tasmania.