Untitled - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

140 ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT.
and they are brought together in seminary at frequent intervals for the
discussion of topics of scientific interest. Several courses in mathe
matical physics are given for the benefit of such students. It is the
aim of the department to furnish every possible facility for research.
The Laboratory
of Physics. Franklin Hall is devoted exclu
sively to the use of the department of Physics. It is of red sandstone,
and is three stories in height above a well-lighted basement. The
building contains, in addition to the amply equipped laboratories of
the department, a lecture room, seating about two hundred students,
and four recitation rooms for the use of classes. Piers are provided in
several of the rooms for apparatus requiring immovable support, and
some of the rooms in the basement and in the annex have solid floors
of cement, upon any part of which galvanometers, etc., may be used.
The arrangements for experimental work are most complete. Gas,
water, steam, oxygen, hydrogen, compressed air, blast and vacuum
cocks are within easy reach, and dynamo and battery currents are
available. A masonry pier, four by twelve feet,
permits the use in the
lecture room of apparatus that could otherwise only be used in the
laboratory. A small turbine on the lecture-table furnishes power for
a variety of experiments. Lanterns with the lime or electric light are
always in readiness for use when they can in any way aid a demonstra
tion. Adjacent to the lecture-room are three large apparatus rooms.
The laboratory rooms in the lower portions of the main building
are devoted to advanced work, those on the upper floors of the west
end to elementary practice. On the fourth floor is a suite of rooms
arranged for the study of photography, with special reference to its-
application to physical investigation. Work in applied electricity is
carried on chiefly in the basement laboratories, in the annex, and in
the dynamo rooms of the department.
The equipment of the Department of Physics comprises many fine
instruments of precision. Among the latter is the large tangent gal
vanometer, constructed at the University, with coils, respectively one
and six-tenths and two meters in diameter, and giving deflections to-
ten seconds. A very valuable adjunct is a well equipped workshop
connected with the department, where a skillful mechanician is con
stantly employed in making apparatus. Some of the most valuable
instruments in the collection have been made in this shop. A further
statement of equipment available for the use of the department will
be found under the heading laboratories of electrical engineering.
The following courses are offered in 1899-1900 :