NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 
297 
equipped with shutters, so that they may be converted into dark rooms; some are 
supplied with gas, compressed air and running water; and some may be used in 
suites (rooms C-D, F-G, J-K, and M-N). These rooms are assigned to the 
graduate students in accordance with the needs of their research. 
Auxiliary to these research rooms are the apparatus, seminary, and soundproof 
rooms, and two shops, one for students and another for the Department’s mechani¬ 
cian. The apparatus and the seminary rooms open off the large central hall and 
are thus conveniently situated for the use of the graduate students. 
The apparatus room contains all of the apparatus and materials that are likely 
to be needed in research.* 6 The apparatus is indexed and catalogued, and every 
piece has its appropriate place. It is checked out and in, and if it is out of order, 
is given immediately upon its return to the mechanician for reconditioning. 
The seminaries and some of the advanced classes are held in the seminary 
room. Current numbers of psychological periodicals and some of the standard 
reference books are to be found here. 
A shop, well equipped with the smaller tools, is provided for the use of the 
graduate students. Its location is convenient to the research rooms, but it is 
isolated from them by a heavy stone wall. The simpler work, incident to the 
construction and setting up of research apparatus, is done here by the student 
himself. The more complex work is done by the mechanician in his shop, which 
is equipped with the more intricate tools and with heavy machinery. This shop, 
as can be seen in Fig. 2, is completely isolated from the research rooms. The 
rooms immediately adjacent to the shop are store and stock rooms, and the rooms 
next to them are the apparatus and editorial rooms. 
The soundproof room is also isolated from the rest of the laboratory.6 It is, 
however, connected with every one of the individual research rooms and with an 
anteroom through the laboratory wiring system. It is also equipped with D.C. 
and A.C. current, compressed air, and a soundproof window. As can be seen in 
Figs. 2 and 4, the room lies between two heavy stone partitions, each 24 in. thick. 
The construction of the room is shown in Figs. 3 and 4. Fig. 3 shows a cross- 
section in one vertical dimension, and Fig. 4 a cross-section in the other. The 
soundproof chamber is a room within a room. The construction of the inner 
room and of the end walls of the outer room is shown in Fig. 3. Passing from the 
outside and going in there is a layer of hard plaster, which is painted with a gloss 
paint so as to reflect sound. The plaster is spread on sheet rock. The supporting 
timbers are backed with insulite, and the interstices are filled with sawdust. 
Several layers of slater’s paper are spread over the insulite; then there is a 2-in. air 
space, another layer of insulite, several layers of slater’s paper, 14 in. of sawdust, 
and finally a third layer of insulite that forms the inner side of the outer room. 
The framework supporting this layer is completely isolated, by means of hair-felt, 
‘Until the remodeling of the laboratory, the research apparatus was classified 
according to use, and distributed among the rooms of the laboratory, then 
designated as visual, auditory, cutaneous, etc. This method of disposing of the 
apparatus is a heritage from Wundt. It was undoubtedly justified when psy¬ 
chological apparatus was simple and meager, but now it merely marks the per¬ 
sistence of a custom due to habit and inertia. 
6The soundproof room was constructed with the aid of a grant from the 
Heckscher Foundation for the Advancement of Research, established by August 
Heckscher at Cornell University.