CHAPTER VI

THE SCIENCE EQUIPMENT

THE lecture-room used by the Naturalist was at one corner of the building with windows on two sides, which could be darkened when experiments with light and electricity required it. The large desk designed by the Naturalist for demonstrations filled one side of the room and contained many drawers and cupboards for apparatus, a tank for working with gases, and plenty of top space for the experiments, which had to be set up the night before.

Adjoining the lecture-room, was the laboratory with individual desks and equipment used by the students in chemistry and physics; while the biological laboratory was in a nearby building that provided plenty of space for growing plants, collections of various kinds, and the dissection of plants and animals.

The astronomical laboratory was the roof of the main building, where night after night the heavens were scanned and the stars traced on maps. The geological laboratory covered many square miles in

extent and was unusually well supplied with specimens. Charlottesville, too, was not very far away, with ts splendid museum and magnificient tele

scope.

After all, the lectures, demonstrations, recitations, examinations, and laboratory exercises were simply preparatory to the regular field excursions, which were a predominate feature of all the science work. The real object was to learn facts-not wordsand nature-not books.

THE SUGAR MILL

At the foot of the hill, to the south, between the little stream and the railway, stood the beet-sugar mill, which had the habit of going up in smoke every few years. This mill was made up of many parts, containing complicated machinery adapted to the intricate physical and chemical processes involved in the extraction of sugar from sugar beets. It is not surprising that the Naturalist made frequent use of this readily accessible and valuable plant in demonstrating to his classes in physics and chemistry the application of the principles they were studying. And what American girl is not fond of sugar in any form! Americans consume at least one-fourth of all the sugar made, which is far more than their share.

The girls on their tramps about Staunton had seen large fields of sugar beets, planted at different times so as to prolong the season as much as possible. The beets were pulled and topped in the fields and brought on wagons or railway cars to the mill, where they were thoroughly washed, cut into thin slices, and treated with hot water to get out the sugar. On adding milk of lime to this sugary solution and heating it, the impurities were mostly coagulated and precipitated. Carbon dioxid gas was then passed through to prevent the loss of sugar through combination with the lime; and, after filtering, sulphur dioxid gas was added to remove other impurities and to bleach the juice to a light-yellow color. Vacuum pans were employed for the evaporation processes and centrifugal machines for the separation of the sugar crystals from the mother liquid, or molasses, which did not crystallize.

The manufacture of white sugar was not attempted, this work being usually left to the sugar refineries, where the impurities were further removed by means of animal charcoal and repeated crystallization.

EXCURSIONS BY THE PHYSICS CLASS

The artificial ice plant was of much interest to the members of the class in physics when they were

studying the effect of evaporation on temperature. Here they saw the system of pipes through which the ammonia circulated and the molds in which the ice was formed because of its evaporation. After expansion, the ammonia was pumped back and condensed and used over and over again. The water used in the molds was the purest to be obtained, either by filtration or distillation, because germs of disease are very readily introduced into the human body through impure ice.

Another place of exceeding interest was the electric light plant, where electromagnets and coils and brushes were seen in operation on a large scale with brilliant results. A girl was simply ashamed not to know her physics lesson after standing by an active dynamo for half an hour. There was something awe-inspiring about it, too, as though that wonderful, silent force that worked such wonders might suddenly leap forth from the machine and become an avenging spirit.

The pumping station at the Park, where the mighty pistons went slowly and continually up and down, driving the water to the reservoir on the hill, reminded one more of Vulcan working ponderously at his lonely forge or Atlas sustaining year after year

the weight of the world upon his massive shoulders. It was more mass than velocity-more ampères than volts-more brawn than brain.

Electric cars were put on the streets of Staunton about that time and the citizens gathered by hundreds to watch them climb the hills without stopping and having the wheels "scotched" every few rods.

The next sensation was the advent of Mrs. Henry St. George Tucker, young and beautiful, on a wheel that cost one hundred and fifty dollars. Bicycles were just coming into style then, and Mrs. Tucker caused more excitement than if she rode in today on a dozen aeroplanes.

Many years later, the Naturalist was approaching Staunton from the same direction on the famous old "Valley Pike" in a big white Packard machine, when he met an exhorter driving slowly along in a small buggy. The horse, which seemed not too well fed and a bit nervous, stopped short on seeing the machine and began to back toward a steep bank at one side of the road, while the driver used every means to quiet him and prevent the impending calamity. Just at the climax of the excitement, when the wheels were about to go over the brink and the exhorter's nerves were keyed up to the highest pitch, he looked