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 an office, a small drafting room for advanced 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 students' lavatory. In order to more adequately
care for increased numbers this building has undergone a considerable
rearrangement during the past year. Wood and machine shop
equipment has been entirely removed from the building, as well as the facilities
for Freshman and Sophomore 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 Shops are now temporarily housed in the Garage erected for the
Motor Truck Training Detachment during the World War. This building
gives a floor space of some 5,000 square feet and has allowed the rearrangement
of wood and machine shop equipment for group drive by four electric
motors. Space is also available in this structure for use in connection with
the course in automobile construction and testing.
The Drawing Room is temporarily housed near Peabody Hall in one of
the Barracks taken from the Training Camp site and rebuilt and fitted for
drawing. The building accommodates about 180 men, each man having his
individual drawing desk.
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 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-Western Power
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 30,000 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.
