When Langdell Hall was completed in 1929, there was an understanding that the rather decrepit brick building which was crowding its north-east corner would be removed as soon as possible. The Rotch Building has enjoyed 21 years of reprieve since then, but with the Graduate Center going up right behind it, it will be demolished this summer.

Since 1898, the Rotch Building has housed various schools and departments of mining, metallurgy, and mining geology. But its original name and purpose were far different: It was christened the Carey Athletic Building in 1891. Seven years later, the athletic authorities needed more space and moved down to Soldiers Field.

The structure was revamped to absorb the School of Mines, with its heavy machinery, and the athletic facilities were all removed or buried. There had been a Mining School at the University during the 1860's that had died, and the one installed in the Rotch Building was a brand-new department under the guidance of Professor H.L. Smyth. This one lasted all the way up to the 'thirties, and filled the building with testing labs containing full-scale mining and milling equipment.

When the Mining School left, to be replaced by the Mining Geology Department, all the big machines were moved out, and several archaeological specimens were unearthed. One of these was a nineteenth century rowing tank, big enough for two people and useless for geological purposes, which was promptly covered over again. Another discovery was a solid 13-inch concrete floor, left over from a departed stamp mill, which turned out to be a perfect base for an experiment by Louis C. Graton, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, who retired last year.

Graton's idea was to build a light microscope giving far higher magnifications than had been achieved before, and he needed an almost perfectly motionless base on which to stand it. The microscope was built in 1931, with various refinements added since, and is known as the Graton-Dune precision micro-camera. It gives a real magnification of 6,000 to 1. Electron microscopes, developed about the same time, give real magnifications up to 50,000 or 100,000 by using enlargements of negatives. This microscope disproved an old law concerning the limit of magnification of light instruments, and also showed that the limits of focus of a microscope are considerably smaller than had been supposed.

In 1925, the building almost saved the University the trouble of destroying it. A fire broke out in the cellar during the night and only the fact that a student doing some nocturnal research called the Fire Department saved the whole building from an unplanned demise. As it was, all the rooms were covered with soot, some of which has been holding out against cleaners for a quarter of a century.

The University has given three reasons for tearing down the Rotch Building: the old commitment to the Law School, the unsuitability of an athletic building for laboratories, and the desire of the geology department to combine under one roof. Metallurgy will be bundled off to Vanserg next year, and Mining Geology will be housed in the Geological Museum, but no 13-inch concrete floor has yet been found for Professor Graton's precision micro-camera.