College Laboratories.

In this age of special research the college laboratory is an indispensable agent in the work of personal investigation to which modern students are devoted. This work of investigation is expensive, and it is only the richly endowed colleges that can afford to fit out proper laboratories. At such a rich college, then, as Columbia one expects to find laboratories in which some of the scientific investigation of the day is being carried on. Not even here can such good results be obtained as in Germany where investigators like Dr. Koch receive liberal subsidies from the government.

Columbia possesses laboratories for several kinds of investigation, for bacteriological, anatomical, chemical, and mineralogical studies. Two large rooms are given up to the bacteriological laboratory where the student learns the method of preparing and studying normal and diseased tissues and organs, and makes for his own future use collections of microscopically specimens, from which he prepares in the laboratory a series of outline sketches.

Connected with the School of Mines at Columbia are extensive laboratories for three branches of study, analytic chemistry, organic chemistry, and assaying. In the analytic chemistry rooms investigations are carried on first in qualitative, then in quantitative analysis. The investigations in organic chemistry are only carried on by students who have done a good deal of work in analytic chemistry.

The most elaborate laboratories are those devoted to the assaying of ores. The work here consists of lectures and recitations, besides practical work. The practical work includes the testing of reagents and small samples of ore, practice on methods, and special work to familiarize the student with sampling large lots of ore, and to give practice in mill and furnace assays. To facilitate the assays of ores of the precious metals, a system of weights has been introduced, by which the weight of the silver or gold globule obtained shows at once, without calculation, the number of Troy ounces in a ton of ore. To furnish necessary facilities for practical work a very complete plant has been provided.

Although the present assaying rooms are ample as regards furnace room and laboratory, it is hoped that larger accommodations for machinery can be soon provided.

As for laboratories at Harvard, the Medical School has just been furnished with laboratories for pathology and bacteriology by a gift from Dr. H. F. Sears. The laboratories are spacious and convenient, but absolutely simple. Here, too, as President Eliot shows in his recent report, a lack of prompt, liberal funds prohibits the results from being as good as those in Germany. The chemical laboratory is being carried on in Boylston Hall under the charge of Professor Cooke. The mineral collection has been removed to the new museum, and it is hoped that a mineralogical laboratory will be furnished this year. The botanical laboratory is also in the museum. Good work has been going on at the Jefferson Physical Laboratory, though there is great need of the services of a good mechanic.