The first of the proposed six new chemical buildings is being erected in the rear of the University Museum, and considerable progress has been made since last fall. The specially designed basement is now practically complete and some of the lower granite blocks have been put in place. The building will be called the Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory, in honor of Professor Wolcott Gibbs, who was formerly chief chemist of the Lawrence Scientific School. When complete, it will cost $75,000, which sum with an additional endowment of $30,000 has been subscribed by former friends and students of Professor Gibbs.

The building faces south and is rectangular in shape, 40 feet wide by 72 feet in length. There will be a basement, a sub-basement for experiments needing constant temperature and pressure, and three other floors. The roof will be flat, thus available for experiments requiring open air. High ceilings and perfect lighting conditions will be features of the basement proper, which are possible by having all but four feet above the ground. Its walls are of gray granite and the deep pit is constructed of solid concrete. All three upper stories will be made of dull Harvard brick. The latest improvements in ventilation will be installed and it will be heated by the central plant in the Peabody Museum. With the exception of the sub-basement, the building will be divided into a large number of small rooms, arranged especially for individual research. One of these will be fitted up temporarily as a lecture room for physical chemistry, but this will be abandoned as soon as the other laboratories have been built.

The others of this group will be erected whenever sufficient funds have been raised. Work on the Wolcott Gibbs Laboratory commenced last fall and the contractors hope to complete it by the first of October.

Professor Richards to Have Charge.

Professor T. W. Richards '86 will have entire charge of the laboratory, since it was founded for the advancement of his particular line of investigation. This is research in physical and inorganic chemistry. The four specific divisions of his field are: bettering the present atomic weights, investigating the compressibility of atoms, heat of chemical reactions, and electrochemical research. All the fine apparatus now used will be transferred, and in addition many accurate and expensive pieces have been presented by the Carnegie Institution at Washington, which was established in order to further scientific research. Professor Richards will keep his private library there, which is of a wide enough scope to satisfy the needs of students. From the nature of the investigations, it is evident that only advanced students and candidates for a doctor's degree will have access to this laboratory.

Gibbs Memorial Laboratory Unique.

Harvard has long had a fine chemical equipment, but lately it has been hampered by a lack of space. Boylston Hall was erected in 1857 with a fund bequeathed by Ward Nicholas Boylston. At present two rooms on the first floor are used for research in physical chemistry. The Wolcott Gibbs Laboratory will be unique in this country, and in fact will be the foremost institution of its kind in the world. The proposed group of buildings, which will cost a million dollars, would give the University an unrivaled place in the field of chemical science.

Students who are interested in learning of the work which Professor Richards has been doing, may find an account of it in the issue of "Science' for October 1911. That paper contains the Faraday Lecture which he delivered before the Royal Institution of London last summer. The title of his lecture was "Fundamental Problems of the Elements," and in it he summed up and emphasized the general bearing of chemical progress for the last twenty years.