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 three other professors; and three lecture-rooms.
Above are two offices, a reading room for students, and blue-print
and photographic rooms. Below on the ground floor are an office and
classroom, the electrical laboratories, the testing laboratories, apparatus
and storerooms, and the student's lavatory. In order to more adequately
care for increased numbers this building has undergone a considerable rearrangement
during recent years. Wood and machine shop equipment has
been entirely removed from the building, as well as the facilities for Drawing.
This change made available much needed classroom space and allowed
the electrical laboratories to be expanded. Incident to the changes new
cement floors were constructed for the Road Materials Testing Laboratory,
the main testing Laboratory and the main hall. A new high-pressure steam
line from the Power House was also installed.
The Drawing Room is temporarily housed in the sub-basement of Cabell
Hall which has been fitted for drawing. The room accommodates about 100
men, each man having his individual drawing desk.
The Power House is a single-story building 110 by 40 feet. It contains
the University boiler plant and the electric lighting plant. The Boiler plant
consists of two horizontal return-tubular boilers, each of 140 horsepower. The
lighting plant consists of three electric generators directly connected to high-speed
engines, the respective capacities being 25, 50, and 75 kilowatts. The
whole plant is available for purposes of instruction, study and experiment.
In addition to the University plants there are available by courtesy of
the owners for purposes of inspection, study and tests such plants as the
turbine station and railway and power substation of the Virginia Public
Service Company, the water turbines and oil engine plant of the Charlottesville
Woolen mills, and plants of the local ice companies and cold storage.
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 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 storeroom 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 smaller rooms for the work of
graduate students.
The new Chemical Laboratory was opened for use in September, 1917,
In this fire-proof structure all the work in Chemistry is assembled. The floor
area provided is about 45,000 square feet. The lecture-rooms seat classes of
300, 75 and 25 students. The laboratories assigned to General Chemistry,
Organic Chemistry, Qualitative Analysis, Quantitative Analysis, and Physical
Chemistry contain 110, 60, 40, 30, and 20 desks. Altogether by dividing
classes into sections, 600 students may be accommodated. Smaller private
laboratories are provided for research workers. Large stock rooms communicating
by elevators with the several floors contain ample stores of chemical
supplies. The 5,000 volumes of books and bound sets of journals constituting
the Departmental Library of Chemistry are so housed as to be accessible to
both teachers and students.
