Chapter VI: Introduction (5)

Cavendish devoted considerable attention to the subject of heat, especially thermometry. In many of his investigations on latent and specific heat he worked on the same lines as Black, and at about the same time; but it is difficult to determine the exact date of some of Cavendish's work, as he frequently did not publish it for a long time after its completion, and most of Black's results were made public only to his lecture audience. Cavendish, however, improved upon Black in his mode of stating some of his results. The heat, for instance, which is absorbed by a body in passing from the solid to the liquid, or from the liquid to the gaseous, condition, Black called "latent heat," and supposed it to become latent within the substance, ready to reveal itself when the body returned to its original condition. This heat Cavendish spoke of as being _destroyed_ or _generated_, and this is in accordance with what we now know respecting the nature of heat, for when a body passes from the solid to the liquid, or from the liquid or solid to the gaseous, condition, a certain amount of work has to be done, and a corresponding amount of heat is used up in the doing of it. When the body returns to its original condition, the heat is restored, as when a heavy body falls to the ground, or a bent spring returns to its original form. Cavendish's determination of the so-called latent heat of steam was very slightly in error.

About 1760 very extraordinary beliefs were current respecting the excessive degree of cold and the rapid variations of temperature which take place in the Arctic regions. Braun, of St. Petersburg, had observed that mercury, in solidifying in the tube of a thermometer, descended through more than four hundred degrees, and it was assumed that the melting point of mercury was about 400 deg. below Fahrenheit's zero. It then became necessary to suppose that, while the mercury in a thermometer was freezing, there was a variation of temperature to this extent, and thus these wild reports became current. Cavendish and Black independently explained the anomaly, and each suggested the same method of determining the freezing point of mercury. Cavendish, however, had a piece of apparatus prepared which he sent to Governor Hutchins, at Albany Fort, Hudson's Bay. It consisted of an outer vessel, in which the mercury was allowed to freeze, but not throughout the whole of its mass, and the bulb of the thermometer was kept immersed in the liquid metal in the interior. In this way the mercury in the thermometer was cooled down to the melting point without commencing to solidify, and the temperature was found to be between 39 deg. and 40 deg. below Fahrenheit's zero.

As a chemist, Cavendish is renowned for his eudiometric analysis, whereby he determined the percentage of oxygen in air with an amount of accuracy that would be creditable to a chemist of to-day, and for his discovery of the composition of water; but to the world generally he is perhaps best known by the famous "Cavendish experiment" for determining the mass, and hence the mean density, of the earth. The apparatus was originally suggested by the Rev. John Michell, but was first employed by Cavendish, who thereby determined the mean density of the earth to be 5.45. At the request of the Astronomical Society, the investigation was afterwards taken up by Mr. Francis Baily, who, after much labour, discovered that the principal sources of error were due to radiation of heat, and consequent variation of temperature of parts of the apparatus during the experiment. To minimize the radiation and absorption, he gilded the principal portions of the apparatus and the interior of the case in which it was contained, and his results then became consistent. Cavendish had himself suggested the cause of the discrepancy, but the gilding was proposed by Principal Forbes. As a mean of many hundreds of experiments, Mr. Baily deduced for the mean density of the earth 5.6604. Cavendish's apparatus was a delicate torsion-balance, whereby two leaden balls were supported upon the extremities of a wooden rod, which was suspended by a thin wire. These balls were about two inches in diameter, and the experiment consisted in determining the deflection of the wooden arm by the attraction of two large solid spheres of lead brought very near the balls, and so situated that the attraction of each tended to twist the rod horizontally in the same direction. The force required to produce the observed deflection was calculated from the time of swing of the rod and balls when left to themselves. The force exerted upon either ball by a known spherical mass of metal, with its centre at a known distance, being thus determined, it was easy to calculate what mass, having its centre at the centre of the earth, would be required to attract one of the balls with the force with which the earth was known to attract it.

Dr. Wilson sums up Cavendish's view of life in these words:--

His theory of the universe seems to have been that it consisted
_solely_ of a multitude of objects which could be weighed,
numbered, and measured; and the vocation to which he considered
himself called was to weigh, number, and measure as many of
these objects as his allotted three score years and ten would
permit. This conviction biased all his doings--alike his great
scientific enterprises and the petty details of his daily life.
[Greek: _Panta metro, kai arithmo, kai stathmo_], was his motto;
and in the microcosm of his own nature he tried to reflect and
repeat the subjection to inflexible rule and the necessitated
harmony which are the appointed conditions of the macrocosm of
God's universe.

COUNT RUMFORD.

Benjamin Thompson, like Franklin, was a native of Massachusetts, his ancestors for several generations having been yeomen in that province, and descendants of the first colonists of the Bay. In the diploma of arms granted him when he was knighted by George III., he is described as "son of Benjamin Thompson, late of the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, gent." He was born in the house of his grandfather, Ebenezer Thompson, at Woburn, Massachusetts, on March 26, 1753. His father died at the age of twenty-six, on November 7, 1754, leaving the infant Benjamin and his mother to the care of the grandparents. The widow married Josiah Pierce, junior, in March, 1756, and with her child, now a boy of three, went to live in a house but a short distance from her former residence.

Young Thompson appears to have received a sound elementary education at the village school. From some remarks made by him in after years to his friend, M. Pictet, it has been inferred that he did not receive very kind treatment at the hands of his stepfather. It is clear, however, that the most affectionate relationships always obtained between him and his mother, and the latter appears to have had no cause to complain of the treatment she received from her second husband, with whom she lived to a very good old age. That Thompson in early boyhood developed some tendencies which did not meet with ready sympathy from those around him is, however, equally clear. His guardians destined him for a farmer, like his ancestors, and his experiments in mechanics, which took up much of his playtime and in all probability not a few hours which should have been devoted to less interesting work, were not regarded as tending towards the end in view. Hence he was probably looked upon as "indolent, flighty, and unpromising." Later on he was sent to school in Byfield, and in 1764, at the age of eleven, "was put under the tuition of Mr. Hill, an able teacher in Medford, a town adjoining Woburn." At length, his friends having given up all hope of ever making a farmer of the boy, he was apprenticed, on October 14, 1766, to Mr. John Appleton, of Salem, an importer of British goods and dealer in miscellaneous articles. He lived with his master, and seems to have done his work in a manner satisfactory on the whole, but there is evidence that he would, during business hours, occupy his spare moments with mechanical contrivances, which he used to hide under the counter, and even ventured occasionally to practise on his fiddle in the store. He stayed with Mr. Appleton till the autumn of 1769, and during this time he attended the ministry of the Rev. Thomas Barnard. This gentleman seems to have taken great interest in the boy, and to have taught him mathematics, so that at the age of fifteen he was able "to calculate an eclipse," and was delighted when the eclipse commenced within six seconds of his calculated time. Thompson, while an apprentice, showed a great faculty for drawing and designing, and used to carve devices for his friends on the handles of their knives or other implements. It was at this time he constructed an elaborate contrivance to produce perpetual motion, and on one evening it is said that he walked from Salem to Woburn, to show it to Loammi Baldwin, who was nine years older than himself, but his most intimate friend. Like many other devices designed for the same purpose, it had only one fault--it wouldn't go.

It was in 1769, while preparing fireworks for the illumination on the abolition of the Stamp Act, that Thompson was injured by a severe explosion as he was grinding his materials in a mortar. His note-book contained many directions for the manufacture of fireworks.

During Thompson's apprenticeship those questions were agitating the public mind which finally had their outcome in the War of Independence. Mr. Appleton was one of those who signed the agreement refusing to import British goods, and this so affected the trade of the store that he had no further need for the apprentice. Hence it was that, in the autumn of 1769, Thompson went to Boston as apprentice-clerk in a dry goods store, but had to leave after a few months, through the depression in trade consequent on the non-importation agreement.

His note-book, containing the entries made at this time, comprised several comic sketches very well drawn, and a quantity of business memoranda which show that he was very systematic in keeping his accounts. His chief method of earning money, or rather of making up the "Cr." side of his accounts, was by cutting and cording wood. A series of entries made in July and August, 1771, show the expense he incurred in constructing an electrical machine. It is not easy to determine, from the list of items purchased, the character of the machine he constructed; but it is interesting to note that the price in America at that time of nitric acid was _2s. 6d._ per ounce; of lacquer, _40s._ per pint; of shellac, _5s._ per ounce; brass wire, _40s._ per pound; and iron wire, _1s. 3d._ per yard. The nature of the problems which occupied his thoughts during the last year or two of his business life are apparent in the following letters:--

Woburn, August 16, 1769.

Mr. Loammi Baldwin,

SIR,

Please to inform me in what manner fire operates upon clay to
change the colour from the natural colour to red, and from red
to black, etc.; and how it operates upon silver to change it to
blue.

I am your most humble and obedient servant,

BENJAMIN THOMPSON

God save the king.

Woburn, August, 1769.

Mr. Loammi Baldwin,

SIR,

Please to give the nature, essence, beginning of existence, and
rise of the wind in general, with the whole theory thereof, so
as to be able to answer all questions relative thereto.

Yours,

BENJAMIN THOMPSON.

This was an extensive request, and the reply was probably not altogether satisfactory to the inquirer. On the back of the above letter was written:--

Woburn, August 15, 1769.

SIR,

There was but few beings (for inhabitants of this world) created
before the airy element was; so it has not been transmitted down
to us how the Great Creator formed the matter thereof. So I
shall leave it till I am asked only the Natural Cause, and why
it blows so many ways in so short a time as it does.

Thompson appears now to have given up business and commenced the study of medicine under Dr. Hay, to whom for a year and a half he paid forty shillings per week for his board. During this time he paid part of his expenses by keeping school for a few weeks consecutively at Wilmington and Bradford, and another part was paid by cords of wood. His business capacity, as well as his dislike of ordinary work, is shown by some arrangements which he made for getting wood cut and corded at prices considerably below those at which he was himself paid for it. His note-book made at this time contains, besides business entries, several receipts for medicines and descriptions of surgical operations, in some cases illustrated by sketches. In his work he was methodical and industrious, and the life of a medical student suited his genius far better than that of a clerk in a dry goods store. When teaching at Wilmington he seems to have attracted attention by the gymnastic performances with which he exercised both himself and his pupils. While a student with Dr. Hay, he attended some of the scientific lectures at Harvard College. The pleasure and profit which he derived from these lectures are sufficiently indicated by the fact that forty years afterwards he made the college his residuary legatee.

Thompson won such a reputation as a teacher during the few weeks that he taught in village schools in the course of his student life, that he received an invitation from Colonel Timothy Walker to come to Concord, in New Hampshire, on the Merrimack, and accept a permanent situation in a higher grade school. It was from this place that he afterwards took his title, for the early name of Concord was Rumford, and the name was changed to Concord "to mark the restoration of harmony after a long period of agitation as to its provincial jurisdiction and its relation with its neighbours."

The young schoolmaster of Concord was soon on very intimate terms with the minister of the town, the Rev. Timothy Walker,[5] a man who was so much respected that he had thrice been sent to Britain on diplomatic business. Mr. Walker's daughter had been married to Colonel Rolfe, a man of wealth and position, and, with the exception of the Governor of Portsmouth, said to have been the first man in New Hampshire to drive a curricle and pair of horses. Thompson soon married--or, as he told Pictet, was married to--the young widow. Whatever may have been implied by this other way of putting the question, there is no doubt that Thompson always had the greatest possible respect for his father-in-law, and ever remembered him with sincere gratitude. The fortunes of the gallant young schoolmaster now appeared to be made; when the engagement was settled, the carriage and pair were brought out again, and the youth was attired in his favourite scarlet as a man of wealth and position. In this garb he drove to Woburn, and introduced his future wife to his mother, whose surprise can be better imagined than described.

[Footnote 5: Father of the colonel.]

The exact date of Thompson's marriage is not known. His daughter Sarah, afterwards Countess of Rumford, was born in the Rolfe mansion on October 18, 1774. It is needless to say that the engagement to Mrs. Rolfe terminated the teaching at the school.

Thompson now had a large estate and ample means to improve it. He gave much attention to gardening, and sent to England for garden seeds. In some way he attracted the attention of Governor Wentworth, the Governor of Portsmouth, who invited him to the Government House, and was so taken with the former apprentice, medical student, and schoolmaster, that he gave him at once a commission as major. This appointment was the cause of the misfortunes which almost immediately began to overtake him. He incurred the jealousy of his fellow-officers, over whom he had been appointed, and he failed to secure the confidence of the civilians of Concord.

Public feeling in New England was very much excited against the mother country. Representations were sent to the British Government, but appeared to be treated with contempt. Very many of these documents were found, after the war was over, unopened in drawers at the Colonial Office. British ministers appeared to know little about the needs of their American dependencies, and relations rapidly became more and more strained. The patriots appointed committees to watch over the patriotism of their fellow-townsmen, and thus the freedom of a free country was inaugurated by an institution bordering in character very closely upon the Inquisition; and the Committees of Correspondence and Safety accepted evidence from every spy or eavesdropper who came before them with reports of suspected persons. Thompson was accused of "Toryism;" the only definite charge against him being that he had secured remission of punishment for some deserters from Boston who had for some time worked upon his estate. He was summoned before the Committee of Safety, but refused to make any confession of acts injurious to his country, on the ground that he had nothing to confess. His whole after-life shows that his sympathies were very much on the side of monarchy and centralization, but at this time there appears to have been no evidence that could be brought against him. The populace, however, stormed his house, and he owed his safety to the fact that he had received notice of their intentions, and had made his escape a few hours before. This was in November, 1774. Thompson then took refuge at Woburn, with his mother, but the popular ill feeling troubled him here, so that his life was one of great anxiety.

While at Woburn, his wife and child joined him, and stayed there for some months. At length he was arrested and confined in the town upon suspicion of being inimical to the interests of his country. When he was brought before the Committee of Inquiry, there was no evidence brought against him. Major Thompson then petitioned to be heard before the Committee of the Provincial Congress at Washington. This petition he entrusted to his friend Colonel Baldwin to present. The petition was referred by the committee to Congress, by whom it was deferred for the sake of more pressing business. At length he secured a hearing in his native town, but the result was indecisive, and he did not obtain the public acquittal that he desired, though the Committee of Correspondence found that the "said Thompson" had not "in any one instance shown a disposition unfriendly to American liberty; but that his general behaviour has evinced the direct contrary; and as he has now given us the strongest assurances of his good intentions, we recommend him to the friendship, confidence, and protection of all good people in this and the neighbouring provinces." This decision, however, does not appear to have been made public; and Thompson, on his release, retired to Charlestown, near Boston. When the buildings of Harvard College were converted into barracks, Major Thompson assisted in the transfer of the books to Concord. It is said that, after the battle of Charlestown, Thompson was introduced to General Washington, and would probably have received a commission under him but for the opposition of some of the New Hampshire officers. He afterwards took refuge in Boston, and it does not appear that he ever again saw his wife or her father. His daughter he did not see again till 1796, when she was twenty-two years of age. On March 24, 1776, General Washington obliged the British troops to evacuate Boston; Thompson was the first official bearer of this intelligence to London. Of course, his property at Concord was confiscated to the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and he himself was proscribed in the Alienation Act of New Hampshire, in 1778.

When Thompson reached London with the intelligence of the evacuation of Boston, Lord George Germaine, the Secretary for War, saw that he could afford much information which would be of value to the Government. An appointment was soon found for him in the Colonial Office, and afterwards he was made Secretary of the Province of Georgia, in which latter capacity, however, he had no duties to fulfil. Throughout his career in the Colonial Office he remained on very intimate terms with Lord George Germaine, and generally breakfasted with him. In July, 1778, he was guest of Lord George at Stoneland Lodge, and here, in company with Mr. Ball, the Rector of Withyham, he undertook experiments "to determine the most advantageous situation for the vent in firearms, and to measure the velocities of bullets and the recoil under various circumstances."

The results of these investigations procured for him the friendship of Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, and Thompson was not the man to lose opportunities for want of making use of them. In 1779 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, "as a gentleman well versed in natural knowledge and many branches of polite learning." In the same year he went for a cruise in the _Victory_ with Sir Charles Hardy, in order to pursue his experiments on gunpowder with heavy guns. Here he studied the principles of naval artillery, and devised a new code of marine signals. In 1780 he was made Under-Secretary of State for the Northern Department, and in that capacity had the oversight of the transport and commissariat arrangements for the British forces.

On the defeat of Cornwallis, Lord George Germaine and his department had to bear the brunt of Parliamentary dissatisfaction. Lord George resigned his position in the Government, and was created Viscount Sackville. He had, however, previously conferred on Thompson a commission as lieutenant-colonel in the British army, and Thompson, probably foreseeing the outcome of events and its effect on the Ministry, was already in America when Lord George resigned. He had intended landing at New York, but contrary winds drove him to Charlestown. It is needless to trace the sad events which preceded the end of the war. It was to be expected that many bitter statements would be made by his countrymen respecting Thompson's own actions as colonel commanding a British garrison, for at length he succeeded in reaching Long Island, and taking the command of the King's American Dragoons, who were there awaiting him. The spirit of war always acts injuriously on those exposed to its influence, and Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson in Long Island was doubtless a very different man from that which we find him to have been before and after; nor were the months so spent very fruitful in scientific work.

In 1783, before the final disbanding of the British forces, Thompson returned to England, and was promoted to the rank of colonel, with half-pay for the rest of his life. Still anxious for military service, he obtained permission to travel on the Continent, in hopes of serving in the Austrian army against the Turks. He took with him three English horses, which rendered themselves very objectionable to his fellow-travellers while crossing the Channel in a small boat. Thompson went to Strasbourg, where he attracted the attention of the Prince Maximilian, then Field-Marshal of France, but afterwards Elector of Bavaria. On leaving Strasbourg, the prince gave him an introduction to his uncle, the Elector of Bavaria. He stayed some days at Munich, but on reaching Vienna learned that the war against the Turks would not be carried on, so he returned to Munich, and thence to England.

M. Pictet gives the following as Rumford's account of the manner in which he was cured of his passion for war:--

"'I owe it,' said he to me, one day, 'to a beneficent Deity, that I was cured in season of this martial folly. I met, at the house of the Prince de Kaunitz, a lady, aged seventy years, of infinite spirit and full of information. She was the wife of General Bourghausen. The emperor, Joseph II., came often to pass the evening with her. This excellent person conceived a regard for me; she gave me the wisest advice, made my ideas take a new direction, and opened my eyes to other kinds of glory than that of victory in battle.'"

If the course in life which Colonel Thompson afterwards took was due to the advice of this lady, she deserves a European reputation. The Elector of Bavaria, Charles Theodore, gave Thompson a pressing invitation to enter his service in a sort of semi-military and semi-civil capacity, to assist in reorganizing his dominions and removing the abuses which had crept in. Before accepting this appointment, it was necessary to obtain the permission of George III. The king not only approved of the arrangement, but on February 23, 1784, conferred on the colonel the honour of knighthood. Sir Benjamin then returned to Bavaria, and was appointed by the elector colonel of a regiment of cavalry and general aide-de-camp. A palatial residence in Munich was furnished for him, and here he lived more as a prince than a soldier. It was eleven years before he returned, even on a visit, to England, and these years were spent by him in works of philanthropy and statesmanship, to which it is difficult to find a parallel. At one time he is found reorganizing the military system of the country, arranging a complete system of military police, erecting arsenals at Mannheim and Munich; at another time he is carrying out scientific investigations in one of these arsenals; and then he is cooking cheap dinners for the poor of the country.

One great evil of a standing army is the idleness which it develops in its members, unfitting them for the business of life when their military service is ended. Thompson commenced by attacking this evil. In 1788 he was made major-general of cavalry and Privy Councillor of State, and was put at the head of the War Department, with instructions to carry out any schemes which he had developed for the reform of the army and the removal of mendicity. Four years after his arrival in Munich he began to put some of his plans into operation. The pay of the soldiers was only threepence per day, and their quarters extremely uncomfortable, while their drill and discipline were unnecessarily irksome. Thompson set to work to make "soldiers citizens and citizens soldiers." The soldier's pay, uniform, and quarters were improved; the discipline rendered less irksome; and schools in which the three R's were taught were connected with all the regiments,--and here not only the soldiers, but their children as well as other children, were taught gratuitously. Not only were the soldiers employed in public works, and thus accustomed to habits of industry, while they were enlivened in their work by the strains of their own military bands, but they were supplied with raw material of various kinds, and allowed, when not on duty, to manufacture various articles and sell them for their own benefit--an arrangement which in this country to-day would probably raise a storm of opposition from the various trades. The garrisons were made permanent, so that soldiers might all be near their homes and remain there, and in time of peace only a small portion of the force was required to be in garrison at any time, so that the great part of his life was spent by each soldier at home. Each soldier had a small garden appropriated to his use, and its produce was his sole property. Garden seeds, and especially seed potatoes, were provided for the men, for at that time the potato was almost unknown in Bavaria. Under these circumstances a reform was quickly effected; idle men began to take interest in their gardens, and all looked on Sir Benjamin as a benefactor.

Having thus secured the co-operation of the army, Thompson determined to attack the mendicants. The number of beggars may be estimated from the fact that in Munich, with a population of sixty thousand, no less than two thousand six hundred beggars were seized in a week. In the towns, they possessed a complete organization, and positions of advantage were assigned in regular order, or inherited according to definite customs. In the country, farm labourers begged of travellers, and children were brought up to beggary from their infancy. Of course, the evils did not cease with simple begging. Children were stolen and ill treated, for the purpose of assisting in enlisting sympathy, and the people had come to regard these evils as inevitable. Thompson organized a regular system of military patrol through every village of the country, four regiments of cavalry being set apart for this work. Then on January 1, 1790, when the beggars were out in full force to keep their annual holiday, Thompson, with the other field officers and the magistrates of the city, gave the signal, and all the beggars in Munich were seized upon by the three regiments of infantry then in garrison. The beggars were taken to the town hall, and their names and addresses entered on lists prepared for the purpose. They were ordered to present themselves next day at the "military workhouse," and a committee was appointed to inquire into the condition of each, the city being divided into sixteen districts for that purpose. Relieved of an evil which they had regarded as inevitable, the townspeople readily subscribed for the purpose of affording systematic relief, while tradesmen sent articles of food and other requisites to "the relief committee." In the military workhouse the former mendicants made all the uniforms for the troops, besides a great deal of clothes for sale in Bavaria and other countries. Thompson himself fitted up and superintended the kitchen, where food was daily cooked for between a thousand and fifteen hundred persons; and, under Sir Benjamin's management, a dinner for a thousand was cooked at a cost for fuel of fourpence halfpenny--a result which has scarcely been surpassed in modern times, even at Gateshead.

That Thompson's work was appreciated by those in whose interest it was undertaken is shown by the fact that when, on one occasion, he was dangerously ill, the poor of Munich went in public procession to the cathedral to pray for him, though he was a foreigner and a Protestant. Perhaps it may appear that his philanthropic work has little to do with physical science; but with Thompson everything was a scientific experiment, conducted in a truly scientific manner. For example, the lighting of the military workhouse afforded matter for a long series of experiments, described in his papers on photometry, coloured shadows, etc. The investigations on the best methods of employing fuel for culinary purposes led to some of his most elaborate essays; and his essay on food was welcomed alike in London and Bavaria at a time of great scarcity, and when famine seemed impending.

The Emperor Joseph was succeeded by Leopold II., but during the interregnum the Elector of Bavaria was Vicar of the Empire, and he employed the power thus temporarily placed in his hands in raising Sir Benjamin to the dignity of Count of the Holy Roman Empire, with the order of the White Eagle, and the title which the new count selected was the old name of the village in New England where he had spent the two or three years of his wedded life.

In 1795 Count Rumford returned to England, in order to publish his essays, and to make known in this country something of the work in which he had been engaged. Soon after his arrival he was robbed of most of his manuscripts, the trunk containing them being stolen from his carriage in St. Paul's Churchyard. On the invitation of Lord Pelham, he visited Dublin, and carried out some of his improvements in the hospitals and other institutions of that city. On his return to London he fitted up the kitchen of the Foundling Hospital.

Lady Thompson lived to hear of her husband's high position in Bavaria, but died on January 29, 1792. When Rumford came to London in 1795, he wrote to his daughter, who was then twenty-one years of age, to meet him there, and on January 29, 1796, she started in the _Charlestown_, from Boston. She remained with her father for more than three years, and her autobiography gives much information respecting the count's doings during this time.

While in London, Count Rumford attained a high reputation as a curer of smoky chimneys. One firm of builders found full employment in carrying out work in accordance with his instructions; and in his hotel at Pall Mall he conducted experiments on fireplaces. He concluded that the sides of a fireplace ought to make an angle of 135 deg. with the back, so as to throw the heat straight to the front; and that the width of the back should be one-third of that of the front opening, and be carried up perpendicularly till it joins the breast. The "Rumford roaster" gained a reputation not less than that earned by his open fireplace.

It was during this stay in London that Rumford presented to the Royal Society of London, and to the American Academy of Sciences L1000 Three per Cent. Stock, for the purpose of endowing a medal to be called the Rumford Medal, and to be given each alternate year for the best work done during the preceding two years in the subjects of heat and light. He directed that two medals, one in gold and the other in silver, should be struck from the same die, the value of the two together to amount to L60. Whenever no award was made, the interest was to be added to the principal, and the excess of the income for two years over L60 was to be presented in cash to the recipient of the medal. At present the amount thus presented is sufficient to pay the composition fee for life membership of the Royal Society. The first award of the medal was made in 1802, to Rumford himself. The other recipients have been John Leslie, William Murdock, Etienne-Louis Malus, William Charles Wells, Humphry Davy, David Brewster, Augustin Jean Fresnel, Macedonio Melloni, James David Forbes, Jean Baptiste Biot, Henry Fox Talbot, Michael Faraday, M. Regnault, F. J. D. Arago, George Gabriel Stokes, Neil Arnott, M. Pasteur, M. Jamin, James Clerk Maxwell, Kirchoff, John Tyndall, A. H. L. Fizeau, Balfour Stewart, A. O. des Cloiseaux, A. J. Angstroem, J. Norman Lockyer, P. J. C. Janssen, W. Huggins, Captain Abney.

In the summer of 1796 Rumford and his daughter left England to return to Munich. On account of the war, they were obliged to go by sea to Hamburg; whence they drove to Munich, where the count was anxiously expected, political troubles having compelled the elector to leave the city. After the battle of Friedburg, the Austrians retired to Munich, and, finding the gates of the city closed, they fortified themselves on an eminence overlooking the city, and, through some misunderstanding with the local authorities, the Austrian general threatened to attack the city if any Frenchman should be allowed to enter. Rumford took supreme command of the Bavarian forces, and so gained the respect of the rival generals that neither the French nor the Austrians made any attempt to enter the city. The large number of soldiers now in Munich gave Rumford a good opportunity to exercise his skill in cooking on a large scale, and this he did, adding to the comfort of the soldiers and reducing the cost of the commissariat. On the return of the elector, Miss Sarah was made a countess, and one-half of her father's pension was secured to her, thus providing her with an income of about L200 per annum for life. Many of the details of the home life and social intercourse during this period of residence at Munich are preserved in the autobiography of the countess, as well as accounts of excursions, including a trip by river to Salzburg for the purpose of inspecting the salt-mines. After two years' stay in Munich, the count was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary from Bavaria to the Court of Great Britain. After an unpleasant and perilous journey, he reached London, _via_ Hamburg, in September, 1798, but was terribly disappointed on learning that a British subject could not be accepted as an envoy from a Foreign Power. As he did not then wish to return to Bavaria, he purchased a house in Brompton Row. But he had been too much accustomed to great enterprises to be content with a quiet life, and was bound to have some important scheme on hand. Pressing invitations were sent him to return to America, but he preferred residence in London, and devoted himself to the foundation of the Royal Institution, though the countess returned to the States in August, 1799. A letter from Colonel Baldwin to her father shortly after her return contains the following passage:--

In the cask of fruit which your daughter and Mr. Rolfe have sent
you, there is half a dozen apples of the growth of my farm,
wrapped up in papers, with the name of _Baldwin's apples_
written upon them.... It is (I believe) a spontaneous production
of this country; that is, it was not originally engrafted fruit.

The history of the remaining period of Rumford's residence in London is the early history of the Royal Institution.

For many years Rumford had had at his disposal for his philanthropic projects all the resources of the electorate of Bavaria, and he had done everything on a royal scale. His original plan for the Royal Institution appears to embody to a very great extent the work of the Science and Art Department, the City and Guilds Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education, the National School of Cookery, the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, and, in addition to all this, to have comprehended a sort of perpetual International Health Exhibition, where every device for domestic purposes, and especially for the improvement of the condition of the poor, could be inspected. How all this was to be carried out with the resources which the count expected to be able to devote to the purpose, does not appear. Foremost among the objects of the institution was placed the management of fire; for its promoter was convinced that more than half the fuel consumed in the country might be saved by proper arrangements.

The philanthropic objects with which the institution was started are apparent from the fact that it was the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor which appointed a committee to confer with Rumford, to report on the scheme, and to raise the funds necessary for starting the project; and one of Rumford's hopes in connection with it was "to make benevolence fashionable." It was arranged that donors of fifty guineas each should be perpetual proprietors of the institution; and that subscribers should be admitted at a subscription of two guineas per annum, or ten guineas for life. The price of a proprietor's share was raised to sixty guineas from May 1, 1800, and afterwards increased by ten guineas per annum up to one hundred guineas. In a very short time there were fifty-eight fifty-guinea subscribers, and to them Rumford addressed a pamphlet, setting forth his scheme in detail. The following are specified as some of the contents of the future institution:--"Cottage fireplaces and kitchen utensils for cottagers; a farm-house kitchen with its furnishings; a complete kitchen, with its utensils, for the house of a gentleman of fortune; a laundry, including boilers, washing, ironing, and drying rooms, for a gentleman's house, or for a public hospital; the most improved German, Swedish, and Russian stoves for heating rooms and passages." As far as possible all these things were to be seen at work. There were also to be ornamental open stoves with fires in them; working models of steam-engines, of brewers' boilers, of distillers' coppers and condensers, of large boilers for hospital kitchens, and of ships' coppers with the requisite utensils; models of ventilating apparatus, spinning-wheels and looms "adapted to the circumstances of the poor;" models of agricultural machinery and bridges, and "of all such other machines and useful instruments as the managers of the institution shall deem worthy of public notice." All articles were to be provided with proper descriptions, with the name and address of the maker, and the price.

A lecture-room and laboratory were to be fitted up with all necessary philosophical apparatus, and the most eminent expounders of science were to be engaged for the purpose of "teaching the application of science to the useful purposes of life."

The lectures were to include warming and ventilation, the preservation of food, agricultural chemistry, the chemistry of digestion, of tanning, of bleaching and dyeing, "and, in general, of all the mechanical arts as they apply to the various branches of manufacture." The institution was to be governed by nine managers, of whom three were to be elected each year by the proprietors; and there was also to be a committee of visitors, the members of which should not be the managers. The king became patron of the institution, and the first set of officers was nominated by him. The Earl of Winchelsea and Nottingham was President; the Earls of Morton and of Egremont and Sir Joseph Banks, Vice-Presidents; the Earls of Bessborough, of Egremont, and of Morton, and Count Rumford, were among the Managers; the Duke of Bridgewater, Viscount Palmerston, and Earl Spencer the Visitors; and Dr. Thomas Garnett was appointed first Professor of Physics and Chemistry. The royal charter of the institution was sealed on January 13, 1800. The superintendence of the journals of the institution was entrusted to Rumford's care. For some time the count resided in the house in Albemarle Street, which had been purchased by the institution, and while there he superintended the workmen and servants.

Dr. Thomas Garnett, the first professor at the institution, was highly respected both as a man and a philosopher, and seems to have been everywhere well spoken of. But Rumford and he could not work together, and his connection with the institution was consequently a short one. Rumford was then authorized to engage Dr. Young as Professor of Natural Philosophy, editor of the journals, and general superintendent of the house, at a salary of L300 per annum. Shortly before this the count's attention had been directed to the experiments on heat, made by Humphry Davy, and on February 16, 1801, it was "resolved that Mr. Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution, in the capacity of Assistant-Lecturer in Chemistry, Director of the Chemical Laboratory, and Assistant-Editor of the Journals of the Institution; and that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house, and be furnished with coals and candles, and that he be paid a salary of one hundred guineas _per annum_." In his personal appearance, Davy is said to have been at first somewhat uncouth, and the count was by no means charmed with him at their first interview. It was not till he had heard him lecture in private that Rumford would allow Davy to lecture in the theatre of the institution; but he afterwards showed his complete confidence in the young chemist by ordering that all the resources of the institution should be at his service. Davy dined with Rumford at the count's house in Auteuil, when he visited Paris with Lady Davy and Faraday, in 1813. He commenced his duties at the institution on March 11, 1801. It was on June 15, in the same year, that the managers having objected to the syllabus of his lectures, Dr. Garnett's resignation was accepted; and on July 6 Dr. Young was appointed in his stead. Dr. Young resigned after holding the appointment only two years, as he found the duties incompatible with his work as a physician.

Rumford's life in London now became daily more unpleasant to himself. Accustomed, as he had been in Bavaria, to carry out all his projects "like an emperor," it was difficult for him to work as one member of a body of managers. One by one he quarrelled with his colleagues, and at length left England, in May, 1802, never to return.

When distinguished men of science are placed at the head of an institution like that which Rumford founded, there is always a tendency for the _technical_ teaching of the establishment to become gradually merged into scientific research; and in this case, after Rumford's departure, the genius of Davy gradually converted the Royal Institution into the establishment for scientific research which it has been for more than three quarters of a century. Probably the man who has come nearest to realizing all that Count Rumford had planned for his institution is the late Sir Henry Cole; but he succeeded only through the resources of the Treasury.

On leaving England in May, 1802, Rumford went to Paris, where he stayed till July or August, when he revisited Bavaria and remained there till the following year, when he returned to Paris. He was again at Munich in 1805; but under the new elector, though an old friend of the count, relationships do not seem to have been all that they were with his uncle, and at length the elector himself was compelled to leave Munich, and soon after the Bavarian sovereign became a vassal of Napoleon. On October 24, 1805, Rumford married Madame Lavoisier, a lady of brilliant talents and ample fortune. That his position might be nearly equal to hers, the Elector of Bavaria raised his pension to L1200 per annum. A house, Rue d'Anjou, No. 39, was purchased for six thousand guineas, and Rumford expended much thought and energy in making it, with its garden of two acres, all that he could desire. But the union was not so happy as he anticipated. The count loved quiet; Madame de Rumford was fond of company: to the former the pleasure of the table had no charms; the latter took delight in sumptuous dinner-parties. As time went on, domestic affairs became more and more unpleasant, and at length a friendly separation was agreed upon, after they had lived together for about three years and a half. The count then retired to a small estate which he hired at Auteuil, about four miles from Paris. The Elector of Bavaria was crowned king on January 1, 1806, and in 1810 Rumford was again at Munich, for the purpose of forming, at the king's request, an Academy of Arts and Sciences. At Auteuil the count was joined by his daughter in December, 1811, her journey having been much delayed through the capture of the vessel in which she had taken her passage, off Bordeaux. An engraving of the house at Auteuil, and the room in which Rumford carried on his experiments, was published in the _Illustrated London News_ of January 22, 1870.

While resident at Auteuil, Rumford frequently read papers before the Institute of France, of which he was a member. He complained very much of the jealousy exhibited by the other members with reference to any discoveries made by a foreigner. He died in his house at Auteuil, on August 21, 1814, in the sixty-second year of his age. In 1804 he had made over, by deed of gift to his mother, the sum of ten thousand dollars, that she might leave it by will to her younger children. As before mentioned, Harvard College was his residuary legatee, and the property so bequeathed founded the Rumford Professorship in that institution.

Cuvier, as Secretary of the Institute, pronounced the customary eulogy over its late member. The following passages throw some light on the reputation in which the count was held:--

He has constructed two singularly ingenious instruments of his
own contriving. One is a new calorimeter for measuring the
amount of heat produced by the combustion of any body. It is a
receptacle containing a given quantity of water, through which
passes, by a serpentine tube, the product of the combustion; and
the heat that is generated is transmitted through the water,
which, being raised by a fixed number of degrees, serves as the
basis of the calculations. The manner in which the exterior heat
is prevented from affecting the experiment is very simple and
very ingenious. He begins the operation at a certain number of
degrees below the outside heat, and terminates it at the same
number of degrees above it. The external air takes back during
the second half of the experiment exactly what it gave up during
the first. The other instrument serves for noting the most
trifling differences in the temperature of bodies, or in the
rapidity of its changes. It consists of two glass bulbs filled
with air, united by a tube, in the middle of which is a pellet
of coloured spirits of wine; the slightest increase of heat in
one of the bulbs drives the pellet towards the other. This
instrument, which he called a thermoscope, was of especial
service in making known to him the varied and powerful influence
of different surfaces in the transmission of heat, and also for
indicating a variety of methods for retarding or hastening at
will the processes of heating and freezing....

He thought it was not wise or good to entrust to men, in the
mass, the care of their own well-being. The right, which seems
so natural to them, of judging whether they are wisely governed,
appeared to him to be a fictitious fancy born of false notions
of enlightenment. His views of slavery were nearly the same as
those of a plantation-owner. He regarded the government of China
as coming nearest to perfection, because, in giving over the
people to the absolute control of their only intelligent men,
and in lifting each of those who belonged to this hierarchy on
the scale according to the degree of his intelligence, it made,
so to speak, so many millions of arms the passive organs of the
will of a few sound heads--a notion which I state without
pretending in the slightest degree to approve it, and which, as
we know, would be poorly calculated to find prevalence among
European nations.

As for the rest, whatever were the sentiments of M. Rumford for
men, they in no way lessened his reverence for God. He never
omitted any opportunity in his works of expressing his religious
admiration of Providence, and of proposing for that admiration
by others, the innumerable and varied provisions which are made
for the preservation of all creatures; indeed, even his
political views came from his firm persuasion that princes ought
to imitate Providence in this respect by taking charge of us
without being amenable to us.

In front of the new Government offices and the National Museum in the Maximilian Strasse, in Munich, stand, on granite pedestals, four bronze figures, ten feet in height. These represent General Deroy, Fraunhofer, Schelling, and Count Rumford. The statue of Rumford was erected in 1867, at the king's private expense. In the English garden which Rumford planned and laid out is the monument erected during his absence in England in 1796, and bearing allegorical figures of Peace and Plenty, and a medallion of the count.