Immediately opposite the front gate of Emmanuel there runs off, at right angles, from the Via Devana, a thoroughfare known as Downing Street. Till the present century it actually gave access to Downing, the youngest of the Colleges to which the University officially accords that title. In those days Downing consisted of a huge parallelogram of prettily be-treed greensward, a furlong across and three furlongs long,[115] thus covering far more space than any other college. But in numbers it was the smallest of all, and also in income, till finally agricultural depression reduced it to such straits that it was forced to sell its northern frontage to the University. Thus Downing Street now leads, not to Downing, but to the great central huddle of University museums, laboratories, and lecture-rooms, which have been incessantly rising during the last two generations, and which are still continuing to rise. Here, cheek by jowl (on the site of the old Austin Friary), are the magnificent Geological Museum erected in memory of Professor Sedgwick, the Museum of Botany, the Law Schools, the Museum of Archaeology, the Museum of Anatomy,[116] the Museum of Mineralogy, the Chemical Laboratory, the Medical Schools,[117] the Physical Laboratory,[118] the Engineering Laboratory, the Optical Lecture-room, and, beside these, the Philosophical Library, and the huge Examination Hall which is the latest addition to the equipment of the University. [Footnote 115: This occupied all but the whole space bounded by Downing Street, Tennis Court Road, Lensfield Road, and Regent Street.] [Footnote 116: The ethnological series of skulls here ranks (with those at Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Washington) as the most complete in the world.] [Footnote 117: On the wall here is engraved Pasteur's inspired saying: "_Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits prepares._"] [Footnote 118: This is called the Cavendish Laboratory, being the gift of the late Duke of Devonshire, Chancellor of the University. The word laboratory we may note is, in student speech, invariably "Lab," which is even used as a verb.] To reach Downing to-day, one must turn to the left on leaving Emmanuel, and continue along the Via Devana (here called Regent Street) till large iron gates on the opposite side of the road invite us to enter the College grounds. These give still an impressive sense of space, though now curtailed at the southern as well as the northern end, and form a pretty setting for the two parallel ranges of yellow stone, which date from the beginning of the nineteenth century. For though Downing was by that time keeping the centenary of its foundation (by Sir George Downing, of Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire), the funds had not hitherto admitted of the erection of college buildings. When first set up, these classical frontages were considered the _ne plus ultra_ of architectural perfection, and strangers were taken to see them as the great glory of Cambridge.