Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1877-1878 Version A [PAGE 19]

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The University.

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The Mechanical Building and Drill Hall is of brick, 126 feet in length, by 88 feet in width. It contains a boiler, forge and tank j-oom; a machine shop, furnished for practical use, with a steam engine, lathes and other machinery; a pattern and finishing shop ; shops for carpentry and cabinet work, furnished with wood-working machinery ; paint and draughtingrooms, and rooms for models, storage, etc. In the second story is the large Drill Hall, 124 by 80 feet, sufficient for the evolutions of a company of infantry, or a section of a battery of field artillery. It is also well supplied with gymnastic apparatus. One of the towers contains an armorer's shop and military model room, an artillery room and a band room. The other contains a printing office and editor's room. The large Dormitory Building is 125 feet in length and five stories in height. It affords 80 dormitory rooms for students. Two smaller dormitory buildings contain eight rooms each. The new Chemical Building erected this year, at a cost, including furniture, of nearly $40,000, contains five laboratories.

PROPERTY AND FUNDS.

Besides its lands, buildings, furniture, library, etc., valued at $470,000, the University owns 25,000 acres of well selected lands in Minnesota and Nebraska. It has also endowment funds invested in State and County bonds amounting to $319,000, besides other property and avails, valued at $33,000. The State has appropriated $25,000 to the Agricultural Department for barns, tools, stock, etc. ; $20,000 to the Horticultural Department for green-house, barns, drainage, tools, trees, etc.; $25,000 for Mechanical and Military Building, machinery, etc.; $127,000 toward the erection of the Main Building, and furnishing the same ; $10,500 for Chemical Apparatus ; $25,000 for Library and Apparatus ; $5,000 for the Apparatus of a Physical Laboratory ; $3,000 for a Veterinary Hall, stable and Apparatus ; $40,000 for Chemical Building; besides smaller amounts for agricultural experiments, etc.

MUSEUM AND COLLECTIONS.

The collections of minerals, fossils, shells, birds, mammals, insects, plants, etc., have been made with much care, and are notably large in some departments, affording valuable facilities in the study of Natural History and Geology. The collection in Entomology is one of the largest in the West. With the aid of a late State appropriation, valuable collections of mammals, birds and fishes have been purchased, embracing many specimens of great rarity and value. O.ne of the Trustees presented the full series of celebrated casts of fossils made by Prof. H. A. Ward, of Rochester, N. Y. This collection embraces the most rare and valuable fossils of the British Museum and of other great European collections, as well as those of President Hitchcock and others in America.

FINE ART GALLERY.

This Gallery is one of the largest and finest in the country. It is the gift of citizens of Champaign and Urbana. It occupies a beautiful hall, 60 by 80 feet, and the large and beautiful display of Art objects in it sur-