A more precise conception of the nature of the proposed laboratory may be formed if reference is made to certain groups of appliances which such a laboratory should possess and be able to place at the disposal of the scientific men coming to it for facilities which may be denied them at home. It should possess a complete set of respiration chambers of various types, and especially should be provided with the “Atwater Respiration Apparatus;” the most perfect appliances for the analyses of gases should be available; it should be provided with the most perfect calorimeters of various types, both for the investigation of the calorimetric value of the foods experimented on, and for the determination of the heat produced by man or by the lower animals,--the subjects of observation. The laboratory should possess, besides, the most perfect appliances for the measurement of work done by man and by animals (“ergostat,” “ergograph”), and a set of balances of the highest perfection capable of weighing with accuracy very heavy loads. These characteristic appliances of a laboratory specially designed for placing our knowledge of Animal Nutrition on a thoroughly sound basis must be superadded to the ordinary means for pursuing with success researches in Pure Organic, Physiological, and Physical Chemistry, as well as in Bacteriology. OUTLINE OF THE PROPOSED SUBJECTS OF RESEARCH TO BE UNDERTAKEN IN THE PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL LABORATORY 1. To determine with greater precision than has yet been possible the efficiency of the animal organism considered as a machine in which potential energy of the organic constituents of food is converted into mechanical work. The knowledge that we already possess has shown that in the animal we have an engine infinitely more efficient as a utiliser of the potential energy supplied to it than any appliance yet constructed, or which we can, in the present state of physical science, construct. A still more precise study of the actual efficiency of the animal as a whole, as well as of certain of the vital organs which are mainly concerned in mechanical work, and a more thorough investigation of the processes whereby--for instance, in the muscles--the potential energy of stored-up chemical compounds is, as appears certain, directly converted into mechanical work, is not only desirable in the interest of the ultimate object of the work of the Laboratory, but possesses a high degree of theoretical interest, even from the point of view of Pure Physics. To sum up: One of the first objects of the investigations to be carried out in the projected Laboratory should be “the more precise determination of the minimum transformation of energy which corresponds to mean and accurately determined conditions of the animal body, and of that of man in particular.”