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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Philosophical Apparatus . The apartment in Harvard Hall , lately occupied as a chapel , has been repaired and fitted up for the Philosop hical Apparatus and the lectures on Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy . The room is 46 feet long , 28
wide , and 18 high , and is a beautiful piece of Doric architecture . The instruments have been cleaned and repaired . The smaller ones are arranged in elegant glass cases . The others are distributed about a floor , a little raised at one end of the room , and enclosed with a railing of a circular form , with the lecture table in the middle .
Immediately fronting the table , are the seats for students , having a curvature corresponding to that of the table and railing . They rise one above another to the number of ten , and are entered at each end from an aisle on the wall .
They are sufficient to accommodate two hundred , without any one being more than twenty-five feet from the table . The philosophical apparatus is very complete . Many of the instruments are upon the largest scale and of the
best workmanship . Among the instruments used on the subject of mechanics , are Atwood ' s machine for illustrating the laws of accelerated and retarded motion ; a whirling table with its appendages ; instruments fitted to demonstrate the various mechanical
powers , the laws of projectiles , &c . For experiments in Hydrostatics and Pneumatics , there are instruments for shewing the hydrostatic paradox ; several hydrometers ; Prince ' s air pump , with a large assortment of receivers and other appendages ; a condenser ; a
fountain for compressed air ; an air gun ; glass models of a fire engine ; a common pump , and an intermittent fountain . Appropriate to electricity are several large electrical machines ,
cylindrical and globular ; a plate machine of two feet diameter ; several electrical batteries , amounting to sixty feet of coated surface ; a variety of electrometers and condensers ; three galvanic batteries , one of two hundred
pairs of plates , six inches square ; apparatus for the decomposition of water , the alkalies , &c . Among the optical instruments , are a number of microscopes , simple and compound , the solar and lucernal ; a camera obscura ; a camera lucida ; a magic lantern ,
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fitted to exhibit the constellations , the aspects and eclipses of the sun and moon , and some of the more interesting p henomena of the planetary motions ; instruments for optical deceptions of
different kinds ; a reflecting telescope of five feet ; two smaller ones with micrometers ; a night glass ; and an achromatic telescope of three feet . In the department of astronomy , besides the instruments just mentioned / are an
equatorial ; a transit instrument of three feet ; an astronomical quadrant of two feet , together with reflecting quadrants and sextants ; also a large and elegant orrery of six feet diameter , exhibiting the diurnal as well as annual motions of the planets , the
eccentricities and obliquities of their orbits , the inclinations of their axes , and motions of the satellites ; a small orrery of two feet ; a planetarium , tellurium and cometarium ; Senex ' s globes of twentyeight inches , and Carey ' s , of eighteen inches diameter . Besides the above
instruments , the apparatus contains most of the smaller ones that are described in the best treatises on Natural Philosophy .
Chemical Laboratory . The Chemical department at the University has lately undergone very essential alteration and improvement . On the return of peace , a lan ^ e order for apparatus , &c . was sent to England , and an agent * went out for the express purpose of selecting instruments of the
best quality , both for the Laboratory at Cambridge and in Boston . The articles have arrived ; they have been chosen with much judgment ; they are all of a superior kind , and form a very large and valuable collection .
In order to accommodate the department of Chemistry still farther , the whole of the lower story of Holden Chapel has been devoted to this purpose . It is divided by a partition , one apartment being appropriated for a lecture room , the other for a laboratory . This last
room , which is indispensable for the chemist , has been fitted up with great judgment , and contains every thing necessary to a full course of lectures on chemistry , arranged in the neatest and most convenient manner . It is probably the most complete Laboratory in the * Mi \ J . F . Dana .
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Account of Harvard University , in Cambridge , Massachusetts . 505
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1820, page 505, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2492/page/5/
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