University of Virginia Library

Search this document 

BUILDINGS.

The buildings devoted wholly or in part to the work of the Department
of Engineering are the following:

The Mechanical Laboratory is the main seat of the instruction in
technical studies. It is 180 by 70 feet and contains on the main floor the
Dean's office and the offices of the three adjunct-professors; the main
lecture room; the laboratory of electrical engineering; and the drafting
room for the First and Second Year students. Above are a smaller drafting
room for advanced students, and blueprint and photographic rooms.
Below on the ground floor are another class room, the testing laboratory,
the wood shop, the metal shop, apparatus and store rooms, the tool room,
and the students' lavatory.

The Power House is a single-story building 110 by 40 feet. In
addition to the University boiler plant and the electric lighting plant this
contains the foundry and the forge room. The boiler plant consists of two
horizontal return-tubular boilers, each of 140 horse power. The lighting
plant consists of three electric generators directly connected to high speed


214

Page 214
engines, the respective capacities being 25, 50, and 75 kilowatts. The whole
plant is available for purposes of instruction, study and experiment.

The Laboratory of General Chemistry, situated at the southern
end of West Range, is one of the older buildings recently remodelled and
fitted up for the work of instruction in undergraduate chemistry. It is
furnished with all the necessary apparatus and supplies, and is comfortably
heated and lighted. The Engineering students, who are taught in a
separate section, have three hours in lecture each week and six hours
in the laboratory. The work is specially adapted to their needs.

The Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry is 150 by 60 feet. It is
a single-story building, containing the lecture room, the laboratory of
analytical chemistry, the rooms for assaying, the balance rooms, the
offices and private laboratories of the professors of Industrial and Analytical
Chemistry, and a number of store rooms. These contain not only the
usual laboratory supplies, but an extensive collection of specimens, illustrating
very completely the processes and products of industrial chemistry,
and of especial interest to engineering students.

The Geological Museum is 120 by 50 feet. It is a three-story
building. The main floor is devoted to the very extensive geological collection
of specimens, charts, relief maps, and so on. The gallery above
contains an equally good collection of minerals and numerous models of
typical crystallographic forms. The upper floor contains the lecture rooms
and the Botanical and Zoölogical collections; these are soon to be transferred
to another building and the space utilized for the new laboratories
of Economic Geology. In the basement are stored subsidiary collections
and new material accumulated in more recent geological surveys.

The Physical Laboratory faces the Mechanical Laboratory on
the opposite side of the quadrangle, and has almost the same proportions.
The main floor contains the lecture room, the professors' offices,
the laboratory of experimental physics, and the store room for the very
large collection of apparatus used in the lectures. On the ground floor
is the laboratory of theoretical electricity, the storage battery room, a well
equipped shop for the repair and manufacture of apparatus, and numerous
smaller rooms for the work of graduate students.