power for lecture purposes. A substantial pier has been brought up

flush with the floor at the end of the lecture table to secure the necessary stability for delicate instruments. Double doors immediately behind the lecture table lead to the apparatus room, and from this entrance may be had to the general elementary laboratory. This is accessible also from the corridor. Heavy wood tables are placed in the middle of this room, and slate tables, supported on stone corbels, run along one side and one end. Connected with this room are a balance room and a mercurial room. The balances rest on slate slabs attached to an independent wall, and are thus nearly or quite free from the vibrations of the floor. A pier in the mercurial room furnishes a sup. port for the cathetometer.

The instruction in physics includes, first, a course of illustrated lectures running through the entire year four times a week, one day a week additional being devoted to quiz work; second, a course of elementary laboratory work, to be followed on election by more advanced work; third, a course in theoretical physics, and special courses in mathematical electricity, geometrical optics, etc.; fourth, a course of lectures and labora tory work in electrical measurements, and a short course on batteries; fifth, a course, partly class work and partly practical work, in dynamoelectric machinery; and sixth, a course in photometry of electric lamps and electric distribution. Special attention is paid to electricity in connection with the course of study in electrical engineering, which the regents authorized in June, 1889. The collection of apparatus already offers good facilities, especially in mechanical measurements, in sound and light, and in electricity. Much new apparatus for quantitative work in this last subject has been added with the new building, including a complete electric lighting plant of fifty incandescent lamps, with the usual instruments for making tests of the same.

While more-interest attaches to the study of electricity at present than to the other branches of physics, yet the other subjects will not be neg lected, aud facilities will be offered for advanced work in other directions than in electricity. It is proposed, however, to meet all reasonable demands for facilities and appliances to carry on sucsessfully the electrical part of the course in electrical engineering.

The high schools of the State are now prepared everywhere to teach elementary physics. It seemed wise, therefore, to leave to them this elementary work and to devote the time of the instructors in the university to more advanced courses which presuppose a knowledge of elementary principles. This plan would exclude from university instruction in physics all students who have not had the preliminary study of the subject in their preparatory training. In order to avoid this difficulty it was proposed to make elementary physics a part of the requirement for admission of candidates for all degrees alike in the department of literature, science, and the arts. It was also urged that it was highly desirable to introduce the student to scientific study at a

much earlier period than heretofore, so that he might cultivate his taste for science along with languages, history, and mathematics. It was also thought that the early opportunity to begin the study of science along with the classics would work rather to the advantage than to the disadvantage of the latter, and would retain many students in classical courses of training who could otherwise seek courses of preparation in which science receives its due share of attention. The question was carefully and exhaustively considered by the faculty of the university for more than a year before deciding unanimously to require a year's study in physics as a condition of entering upon any course of study leading to a degree in the literary department. This requirement will go into effect in 1890.

Since practical laboratory work has become such a prominent feature in modern physics-teaching it may be well to say that physical laboratory practice in the university is confined entirely to quantitative exercises. Qualitative experiments for purposes of illustration only are performed before the class in the lectures. The laboratory student is always expected to do his work in the most accurate manner that his instruments will admit of. He thus secures a training in carefulness and attention to important details that no amount of didactic teaching can impart. He learns also that our very best efforts enable us to approach only more or less nearly to the ideals expressed in the laws of physical action; that every determination is attended with more or less uncertainty, due to inevitable instrumental errors and to errors of observation. When he has become skillful in the use of instruments and has learned to reduce the errors to a minimum, he can then take up some independent investigation with a fair prospect of success. Every physical laboratory of university grade should aim to add some thing to that great stock of the knowledge of nature by which science. is constantly advancing. Science is thus not a thing of the past only, but also of the present and the future. Perhaps no field offers more problems for solution than are to be found in physics. It is earnestly hoped that some of them may be solved in the new physical laboratory of the University of Michigan.

ENGINEERING LABORATORY AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERING.

[Prepared by Prof. Mortimer E. Cooley, December, 1889.]

A course of mechanical engineering, parallel with the courses in civil and mining engineering, was established in the university in 1881. The addition of this course had been desired for many years in order to round out and complete the work of the university in engineering. The question of expense, an important one up to that time, stood in the way, however, and it was not until the services of an engineer of the U. S. Navy, detailed by the Navy Department under an act of Congress of 1879, were secured without expense to the university that the mechanical course was found practicable.

Assistant Engineer Mortimer E. Cooley, U. S. Navy, reported for duty to Acting President Henry S. Frieze, August 9, 1881, and immediately entered upon the work of organizing a course in mechanical engineering. A special announcement was issued, and the work was blocked out in such a way as to meet immediate demands on the part of students and at the same time to provide for any probable future development. Such a course would not have been possible except for the hearty coöperation of the departments of civil and mining engineering, to which the new course was in fact supplementary.

A demand for the advanced courses in mechanical engineering was not expected for at least two years, and no provision was made to offer them, as the teaching force was inadequate. The opening of college disclosed a much greater demand for the courses offered than was anticipated, even for the advanced courses, which latter demand was of course necessarily refused. The work thus commenced under the most favorable auspices has continued without interruption to the present time, and has given encouragement to new development in special lines of work now open to all students in engineering.

The following list comprises the courses offered at that time, together with the number of students electing same:

1. Workshop appliances and processes, pattern-making, molding, and founding, a 2-5 course...

2. Mechanical laboratory work (not given this year).

3. Mechanical laboratory work, a 2-5 course

4 Machinery, machine construction, and drawing, a 3-5 course.

5. Mechanism and machine drawing, a 2-5 course

6. Machinery and prime movers, a 3-5 course.

7. Machine design, a 3-5 cou.se.

8. Thermodynamics (not given this year).

5

5

10

6

1

1

1

35

9. Original design, estimates, specifications, and contracts, a 2-5 course 10. Naval architecture (not given this year).

11. Naval architecture, a 2-5 course

Total number of students

Courses 5 and 6 are identical with the courses of the same number in civil engineering, and the students taking them were mostly civil engineering students.

Soon after the opening of college the question of a mechanical laboratory for practical work in engineering arose. Dr. Frieze urged the expenditure of $2,509 that had been appropriated by the legislature for the department of civil engineering, and which that department was not prepared to make immediate use of, for the purpose of making a beginning. While it did not appear possible to do much with so small a sum, it was finally concluded to expend it, and a two-story brick and wood building, 24 by 36 feet, was erected at a cost of $1,500, leaving $1,000 for the equipment, which consisted of two sets of woodworking tools, a wood-turning lathe, an old iron lathe, a forge and set of blacksmith tools, a small cupola furnace, a brass furnace, a blower (donated by Mr. Sturtevant, of Boston), and shafting. Power was furnished by a 4-horse-power engine and boiler combined.

The building, commenced late in the fall, was finished and ready to be occupied the second semester, and 6 students, the limit, were accomodated to work, many more being refused. Although no regular course of shop instruction could be followed at first, still the results accomplished were sufficient to show conclusively that there was a demand for such instruction on the campus, and that the university regents would be warranted in increasing liberally the facilities for work in this direction.

For the first two years laboratory work was offered during the second semester only, the time of the instructor, Mr. Cooley, being fully occu pied during the first semester with other courses.

Mr. Robert Winslow was employed to instruct in the foundry, giving a part of two days per week to this work.

The regents, in their memorial to the legislature in 1883, asked for an appropriation of $1,500 for apparatus and equipment and $1,000 per year for two years to secure additional skilled assistance. Clarence G. Taylor, a graduate of the Worcester Free Institute, was in the fall of 1883 appointed assistant in the mechanical laboratory. At this time also the regents turned over for temporary use of the department an unused wooden one-story building about 30 by 70 feet, which was moved alongside the first structure and connected with it. This addition, with its woodworking machinery and engine, together with the new tools purchased with the $1,500, more than trebled the capacity of the laboratory. The following comprised the equipment in 1883-84.

The wood room, 30 by 70 feet, contained 13 benches, 13 complete sets of tools, 3 wood-turning lathes, 1 chuck-lathe, 1 jig-saw, a universal sawbench, a molding mac hine, a mortiser, and a power grindstone. The engine was also placed in this shop. Two of the wood-turning lathes, the chuck-lathe and jig saw were designed and built in the laboratory by students.

The iron room, 24 by 36 feet, contained 8 vises, 2 ironlathes, 1 speed. lathe, 1 iron planer, 2' drill-presses, an emery grinding machine and a grindstone.

The forge shop, 24 by 36 feet, contained 5 forges, with power blast, and 5 complete sets of tools, including 2 vises.

The foundry took the place of the forge shop during the second semester, and contained a molding floor with 1 foot of molding sand, the necessary molders' tools, a cupola 18 inches inside diameter and 60 inches high; also a brass furnace.

The capacities of the various shops were as follows: Wood room, 14 students; iron room, 6; forge shop, 18, in three sections; foundry, 12; total, 38 the first semester and 32 the second semester.

Up to this time the demand for admission to the laboratory courses was about twice the capacity of the shops to accommodate; it therefore became necessary to limit the admission to engineering students. The original idea had been, however, to open the mechanical laboratory to