WORK STARTS SOON ON NEW CHEMISTRY GROUP BUILDINGS

The site of the new Chemistry Laboratory on Oxford Street will be ready for the mason's hand in two weeks, it was learned yesterday through the contractors who are at present engaged in excavating the plot for the foundations. The laboratory, or more properly the new Chemistry Group, will consist of two buildings connected by a tunnel. The first and larger of these is to go up on Oxford Street between the New Lecture Hall and the University Museum, while the second will be immediately behind it on Frisbie Place.

Hegeman-Harris, builders, of Boston and J. F. White, a Cambridge contracting company, started work on the site of the new buildings about a week ago, and according to the present rate of progress of leveling and excavating operations two weeks more will see the first foundation stones in place. Efforts are being concentrated at present on the site of the larger building, the foundations of which will be finished before work starts on the second part of the group. The exigencies of the grade make it desirable that dirt be available to fill in around the foundations of the first, and it is to meet this need that excavations are being delayed on the second.

Laboratory to be 300 Feet Long.

The first building of the group will be slightly over 300 feet long and will fill up practically all the space between the University Museum and the New Lecture Hall. The main section of this structure will face Oxford Street and will be about 50 feet thick, with two wings of different lengths running back from it toward Frisbie Place and the second building. The longer of these wings is to be about 84 feet long, not inclusive of the width of the main building.

Before the ground was cleared for the laboratories that are going up on it, it was occupied by several old houses which were moved away or torn down during the past fall. As soon as the last traces of these wooden structures had been removed, which was about a week ago, the present contractors and builders moved in and started work leveling the ground off and digging out the foundations' hole. Two steam shovels are at present in operation and a third will shortly be added, the work being pushed forward with great rapidity.