Abstract
THE new Engineering Laboratory was opened on Tuesday by Lord Kelvin, in the presence of a brilliant assemblage of University dignitaries. The building occupies the site of the old Perse Grammar School, and has been erected from the designs of Messrs. Marshall, Vicars, and Co. The exterior is of plain but not unattractive red brick, in the French château style. The main building is of three stories. The three chief rooms, one above the other, are on the left of the handsome entrance doorway, and overlook the grounds of Corpus Christi College. To the right of the doorway are offices, small class-rooms, and rooms for special researches. The electrical laboratory is on the ground-floor; above it is the drawing school, excellently lighted by large western windows; and at the top is the mechanical museum, lighted by dormer windows and a cupola. Behind, the fine old schoolroom has been altered by raising its floor, but the beautiful oaken-roof of sixteenth-century work has been preserved, and the room gains rather than loses by the slight change in its proportions. Here is the chief mechanical laboratory, and it is furnished with all needful apparatus for work on the strength of materials, mechanism, and applied mechanics. Beyond, in the old schoolyard an admirable steam and dynamo laboratory has been erected from Prof. Ewing's designs. Here are several types of experimental steam-engines, dynamos, and motors, and in another compartment the boilers and other heavy appliances. The liboratories are on one side contiguous to the Chemical Laboratory, and when some day the necessary extension of the Cavendish Laboratory takes place, they will also abut on the Physical department. The cost of the whole has been some £6000, of which about £5000 was contributed by friends of the University who desired to see engineering science properly established and equipped in Cambridge.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
The New Engineering Laboratory at Cambridge. Nature 50, 65 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/050065a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/050065a0