Purdue University - Debris Yearbook (West Lafayette, IN)

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iJcLaval stcaiu Uubuio. Allogcthui there aic m the Ubutdlui), lull) blcaiu c) lindcrb, aggicgating over fifteen hundred horse-power. The Master Car-Builders ' Association has deposited here a brake shoe testing machine and an air-brake testing rack having a complete air-brake equipment for a train of one hundred freight cars. Apparatus for work in hydraulics, machines for testing strength of materials, pumps and, in brief, machinery found in none but the best machine shops of the country are housed here. Railroad and manufacturing companies have shown their appre- ciation of the work done at Purdue by placing at the University valuable pieces of machinery and also using it as a testing laboratory. Hardly a week passes but that some work of this kind is sent in and the students are thus given exceptional opportunities for observation and practice. Upon entering the beautiful Electrical Building we find ourselves amid machinery of every kind known and operated in the electrical world. Immediately that a machine becomes out of date it is replaced by one of recent build and make. Here are found a large number of gener- ators, the largest of which, a fifty kilo-watts alternator is used not only for experirnental work but also for the incandescent lighting of the buildings of the University. Two complete street-car motors are mounted in the laboratory for the purpose of study, power being supplied by means of a direct current generator. Nearly every form of American transformer is found in the trans- former rack. A switch board containing more than four hundred terminals occupies the center of the room and by the use of a German silver resistance and a large lamp board, any resistance from

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gji BB ' 1111- justly celebrated tluoughout the t clini il ill in 1 lu r m tin t rs in in. n I I inie m 1 r n un in technical work. Over a dozen buildings, each adajded to the use for which it was designed, house the laboratories and equipment. These buildings are grouped about a thirty-acre campus, which is laid out according to the best art of the landscape gardener. Trees, shrubs, walks, fountains and buildings, all combine to form one of the most beautiful campuses in the West. Here men are equipped for work along six various lines of industry: Mechanical, Civil and Electrical Engineering, Applied Science, Agriculture and Pharmacy. In Mechanical Hall, the largest building on the campus, we find a varied assortment of valuable and interesting machinery and equipment. The beginners in engineering are here placed at work on the lathes, benches and in the foundry, where, by actual experience, they acquire the fundamental principles of the work they are taking up. When they have mastered these principles they are assigned to work of greater importance and intricacy, for all of which the most up-to-date equipment is provided. Here is found the great locomotive, Schnechtady No. 2, mounted in such a manner as to make possible tests of every description pertaining to locomotive engineering. In addition to this locomotive, there are in this laboratory a one hundred horse-power Harris-Corliss triple expansion engine, designed and constructed especially for the University; a thirty-five horse- power Buckeye straight line engine; a Baldwin compound locomotive and a ten horse-power

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a small traction ot an ohm u to toity liiousand uiims can be obtainetl. A comiilctc tciejiiionc system is in operation between the various buildings of the University, thus giving the students every opportunity to study this important branch of electrical vifork. That the importance of the work done in electricity at Purdue is recognized is shown by the fact that the National Fllectric Light Association has fitted up at considerable expense a photometric laboratory devoted to the solving of questions of great importance to the electrical world. The Civil Engineering Department is second to none in thoroughness and quality of equipment. Only the finest and latest makes of instruments are used. The students in this department receive practical training from the very beginning in s urveying, railroad location and maintenance, construction work, etc. The entrance of many of the students in civil engineering into practical work before they have finished their college course speaks volumes for the thoroughness of their training and the proficiency of their instructors. In the Science Department we find the greatest variation in the course of study. Owing to the elective system prevailing here a student may follow any one of si.x courses. These courses, which include Technical Chemistry, Sanitary Science, Industrial Art, Pre-Medical, General Science and Biology, overlap the engineering courses in many studies, as in mathematics, languages, physics, etc. While the equipment is naturally not so interesting and striking as that of the engineering dcjiartmenls, it is of the best kind and ]uality throughout. In the museum are found 16