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TheWilliams RecordEXTRAVOL. XXIX WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.., TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1915

NIGHT FIRE COMPLETELY DESTROYSTHOMPSON CHEMICAL LABORATORY

TOTAL LOSS ESTIMATED AT NEARLY $100,000Assistant Prof. Mears and Brown ’15 Have Narrow Escape-

Spontaneous Combustion Assigned as ProbableCause—Fire Starts on Ground Floor

The building, erected in 1892, was valuedat $60,000, exclusive of any of the con-tents. The library on the third floor,containing several thousand volumes,many of which were rare old books outof print, and bound files of chemicaljournals, was valued at over $5,000. Itwas considered to be one of the com-pletest collections of its kind in NewEngland.

WAR CAUSING REVIVALOF RELIGIOUS FEELING

PURPLE AGAIN TIESST. GEORGE IN SOCCER

CHLORINE GAS THREATENS AN EXPLOSIONDr. John R. Mott Shows Effect

of Conflict In Europeon Christianity

All-Class Team Outplays Redand White But Is Unable To

Break Tie—Score is 2-2Conflagration Menaces Physical Laboratory and Professors’

Homes—8 Streams Flayed on Flames by StudentBrigade and Town Hose Company Despite the many set-backs Chris-

tianity has received from the war, thereare also a great many conditions favor-able for its advance, stated Dr. John R.Mott before the regular Sunday eveningmeeting of the Christian Association inJesup Hall Sun. evening. Doctor Mott,who as Secretary of the World’s StudentChristian Federation is in close touchwith all the religious movements in thebelligerent nations, spoke on “TheReligious Significance of the War.”

Each country speaks of the conflict asa “holy war.” This is perhaps true in agreater degree of Russia than of anyother country: the Russians may be saidliterally, to be going into battle from theirknees. In France the churches arecrowded to suffocation for every service.In Germany no company proceeds to thefront without first receiving the holysacrament. Along with this revival ofreligious feeling, which has been rathertoward the Old Testament Lord of Hoststhan toward the Christ, there has alsobeen a great ground swell of social reform.The abolition of the sale of vodka inRussiais perhaps the most striking example ofthis movement.

Two extra periods of ten minutes eachand one other of five minutes failed tobreak a 2-2 tie between the Williamsall-class soccer team and the St. Georgeeleven of North Adams on Westbn Fieldlast Saturday afternoon. In this secondgame between the teams, as in the contesttwo weeks ago, the elevens were veryevenly matched, but Williams had a slightadvantage over the visitors due to theabsence from the line-up for the greaterpart of the game of J. T. Young, thecaptain of the Red and White team.

Fire, probably due to spontaneouscombustion, totally destroyed the Thomp-son Chemical Laboratory early this morn-ing, The alarm was turned in simultane-ously by Prof. Willis I. Milham from hishome on Hoxsey Street and AssistantProfessor Brainerd Mears who ran fromthei Laboratory, where he was sleepingto a nearby telephone, at 1.50 a. m.

In less than fifteen minutes the StudentFire Brigade had a stream playing on thebuilding and this original stream waslater; augmented by seven more as twoof the town hose company’s carts and acompany of North Adams fire fightersarrived on the scene. Hundreds of peopleforsook their beds and hurried to see oneof fhe biggest blazes which Williamstownhasf ever witnessed. At a late hour thismorning the fire was completely undercontrol, but streams from all of the pipeswere still being played into the burningmass of: contorted steel and wood. Ex-plosions 1 of varying intensities tended tokeep the spectators’ interest at a whitehoi;pitch, if the fire itself was not alreadydoijijg so.

reveals the following facts. Shortly be-fore 2.00 o’clock, Assistant ProfessorBrainard Mears, who, with Mr. Brownwas sleeping in the instructors’ apart-ments on the top floor of the doomedbuilding, was awakened by the smell ofsmoke. He immediately called Brownand opened a window at the northeastend of the building. The other side ofthe Laboratory was in flames up as faras the second story. Trying the door ofthe room and finding that the hall wasso filled with smoke that it was impass-able the two men climbed out on theslate roof and crawled along the lightcopper gutter to the fire-escape on theeastern side of the building. AssistantProfessor Mears ran in his bare feet andnight shirt to a telephone on Spring Streetand turned in an alarm. Brown mean-while threw out the Professor’s clothesand his own and then proceeded to gropehis way along the gutter to the fire-escape.When Assistant Professor Mears returneda couple of minutes later, the two menset about dressing in the warmth of thelight snow which covered the groundand the heat from the burning building.Brown found that in addition to hiswatch he had in the way of wearing ap-parel a B. V. D. undershirt, a pair of shoesand the oldest suit of the six which heowned. Assistant Professor Mears had acomplete outfit with the exception of apair of shoes. Brown said that he hadlost in the fire about five hundred dollarsworth of personal belongings, and thatAssistant Professor Mears had lost thecontents of a suit case and his traditionalovercoat. Mr. Brown is going to applyto the Faculty Club for temporaryquarters.

Professor Milham said when interviewedthat he had been awakened from his sleepby the popping of the exploding bottlesand that as he raised himself on his elbowand looked out from his bedroom windowhe saw the flar*e and thought that itcame from the Biological Laboratory.The flames were just rising above theBiological Laboratory Lecture room, theaddition on the rear of the building, sothat his report coincides with that of Mr.Brown to the effect that the fire startedin the lower northwest corner of thebuilding. Professor Milham immediatelytelephoned in an alarm and proceeded todress and make for the Physical Laboratoryto superintend the rescuing of the Libraryas well as many pieces of physical appara-tus that were taken from the threatenedbuilding by students and placed in JesupHall for safety. Professor Milham com-mends the Student Fire Brigade forhaving a stream of water playing on thebuilding before he appeared on the sceneof action. He attributes the fact that thePhysical Laboratory was saved to theprompt action of the students.

When interviewed last night on thescene of action, Assistant Professor Mearsestimated the loss to be close to $100,000.

In the second floor room at the south-east corner of the “ell,” chemical bal-ances costing $2,000 were kept. Amongthe other items of loss were $2,000 worthof platinum, and copper valued at $5,000.Many of the chemicals cannot be replacednow, on account of the cutting off of thefor. ign supplies and were consequently ofgreat value.

In Professor Mears’ office, lecture notesfor all of his courses, and files and recordsof every description went up in flames.A letter from Woehler, the pioneer in thefield of organic chemistry, addressed toProf. Leverett Mears, and hanging framedin his office, is one of the prized personalpossessions which was lost.

“Won’t this make it necessary to dis-continue most of the courses?” AssistantProfessor Brainerd Mears was asked.

Williams won the toss for the choiceof goal and on the kick-off St. Georgeadvanced the ball into the Purple terri-tory where, after three minutes of play,Gorman scored an easy tally from thecenter of the field. After this first on-slaught, the all-class team took a decidedbrace and kept its opponents on thedefensive for the remainder of the period.With but a few minutes to play in thishalf, Captain R. G. Young scored thefirst tally for his team and the periodended with the score I-I.

“I guess we’ll have to transfer themall to the physics department!” heanswered with a smile. "Even ChemistryOne wont have a place to meet forlectures.” The Purple still maintained the offensive

in the second half, the backfield menbreaking up any attempt of the visitorsto advance the ball into Williams terri-tory, and the forward line keeping welldown near the St. George goal. Whenthe period was about half over, Fitchcarried the ball down the side lines, shota goal from a difficult angle, and therebygave the Purple a lead of one point. Notuntil the last two minutes of play, whenGorman shot the ball by Geer, did thevisitors again tie the score. The periodended soon after with neither side thevictor.

The report was circulated last night thatthe North Adams Normal School authori-ties had telephoned almost as soon asthe alarm was rung in, offering the use oftheir laboratories to make possible thecontinuance of the courses.

A cylinder of liquid chlorine gas onlyrecently purchased and containing abouttwo.hundred pounds was not reached bythe?flames in its place of storage in thesoutheast corner of the basement of thebuilding. On good authority we are toldthat had it been attacked by the flames,Williamstown would have been severelyjarfed and the odor of the Germantrenches would have permeated our at-mosphere for several days.

The Physical Laboratory and the homesof Professor R. L. Taylor and ProfessorWilliam McEIfresh were for a timemehaced by the ever increasing conflagra-tiofi so near at hand, but a bucket brigadekept the roofs of the two members of theFaculty wet down, and one of the streamsof water was withdrawn from the mainfurnace to be played upon the PhysicalLaboratory. Several windows werebroken from the heat expansion in thePhysical Laboratory but that was theonly serious damage done to the building.

When the firefighters first took uptheir task they had little wind to contendwith, but toward 3.00 o’clock a briskwind sprang up from the northwest andit was this that carried the licking tonguesof flame over ontothe Physical Laboratoryand sent clouds of sparks high in the airand blew them over a large area. Theclothing of one or two of the men in thehose crew stationed at the northwestcorner of the building caught fire from theintense heat and this minor conflagra-tion was extinguished by the stream ofanother company. Later in the morningthe wind again died down and with thecessation of the blow the conflagrationdied a slow but natural death aided, ofcourse, by the prodding thrusts of severalstreams of town water.

The huge financial demand being madeupon the people of the warring nationsis, however, seriously hindering progressin the missionary field. By calling thebest brains of Europe to the trenchesanother blow has been dealt to the Chris-tian forces of the world. Thus, as aresult of this war, many good causes andmovements just started have beenentirely or to a great degree cut off.

There are, however,, many conditionsat present favoring Christianity. Thestruggle has revealed the strength of theinternational Christian bond, which isperhaps the only one that has not snappedunder the strain. Although each side isdetermined to fight out its political dif-ferences, many of the leaders on bothsides are ready to take up the work ofinternational reconciliation as soon aspeace is restored. In the small neutralcountries of Europe especially has thespirit of Christian generosity been broughtout. Not only is the war tending to breakdown denominational barriers where co-operation was hitherto hindered by them,but it has shown the shortcomings ofChristianity and is thus indirectly bene-fiting it. The faith has been purified ofthe unreasonable, simplified in respect, toinessentials, and centered in Christ.

An emergency refreshment room,wherecoffee, bread, and crackers were servedto the firefighters for over two hoursduring the night, was provided by Mrs.Taylor in the kitchen of her home.

Weather ForecastPartly cloudy weather tonight and

Wednesday: continued cold.Three extra periods were then played,

two of ten minutes each and one of fiveminutes but neither side was again ableto score, the ball remaining in the centerof the field the entire time. For St.George, Gorman was the mainstay ofthe forward line and Dillon guarded thegoal in a praise-worthy manner. J. T.Young, who was substituted for H.Johnson late in the second half wasunable to play up to his usual form onaccount of a recent illness. Geer in goaland G. S. Young at left full-back werethe individual starsof the Purple backfieldand Coles, Fitch, Rockwood, and Slossonwere the main factors on the offensive.

TheWilliams RecordPublished Monday, Thursday and Saturday

Afternoons Throughout the College YearBy Students of Williams College

EDITORSGORDON WYATT CAMERON, 1916

Edii or-in-ChiefJACK ARTHUR CONWAY. 1916

Managing EditorH.L. VanDoien 1917 } AssociateN. U. White 1917 f Editors

C. Jr. 1916 U. R. Palmedo 1917D. P. Wells 1916 N. H. Wilson 1917M. Wood 1916 O. J. Keller 1918J.S.Alexander,Jr. 1917 R. W. Lester 1918

R. G. Young 1918HERBERT C. FOWLER. 1916, Business Mgr.Alan G. Warner, 1917, Ass’t. Bus. Manager[RA A. HAWKINS, Jr., 1916, Circulation Mgr.M. A. Moore, 1917, Ass’t. Circulation Manager

Score—Williams 2; St. George 2. Goals—Fitch, R. G. Young, and Gorman (2).Referee—J. Young of North Adams:Linesman —Richard Davies of Blackinton.Time of halves—30 minutes. Two extraten minute and one five minute period.

Subscription price, 13.00 per yearSingle copy. Five cents. The war is also revealing an unparalleled

opportunity for helpfulness and evange-lization. The Y. M. C. A. has nowsecured official permission to work in thetraining camps, trenches, hospitals, andprison colonies of all the nations, and isdoing all it can to cope with the demandsbeing made upon it.

Alumni and undergraduates are heartily in-cited to contribute. Address such communica-tions, signed with full name to the editor-in-hief. All special communications and contri-

butions must be received on the second eveningbefore day of publication.

Entered at Williamstown post-office as secondlass matter.

Copies for sale at Williams* Book Store andA. H. L. Bemis’ newstands.

Greek “Squeezes”Professor Dickerman will speak before

the Classical Society on "How the GreeksMade Their Letters,” at a regular meetingof the organization next Wednesday even-ing at 8.00 o’clock in the Common Room.By way of illustrating his talk, he willshow “squeezes” of Greek inscriptions ofvarious periods.

’13—Mr. and Mrs. Norman Schultzof Summit, N. J. have recently announcedthe engagement of their daughter MissBeatrice Schultz to Phillip Butler Hey-wood of Worcester, Mass.

“The Editor-in-Chief is always responsiblelor the opinions expressed in the editorial col-umns. and the Managing Editor for the matterwhich appears in the news columns.”An interview with C. M. Brown, Assis-

tant in the former Chemistry Laboratory vol. 30 December 7, 1915 Extra

2 WILLIAMS, RECORD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1915

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