Count Rumford's Experimental essays, political, economical, and philososphical. Essay IV. Of chimney fire-places, with proposals for improving them, ...
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Harvard University Houghton Library
N016610
Title from cover title of original wrappers. "The first volume of this work i.e. 'Essays, political, economical, and philosophical' will be completed in the course of two or three months; but, as some of the essays which compose it are upon subjects highly interesting at the present moment, each essay will be published separately, as soon as it is out of the press" (p.3 of wrappers).
London : printed for T. Cadell jun. and W. Davies, (successors to Mr. Cadell,), 1796. 6,295-389,3p. : ill ; 8°
Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, was a physicist, organizer, and philanthropist, better remembered by his title, Count Rumford.
Background
Thompson was born in rural Woburn, Massachusetts, on March 26, 1753. He was the only child of Benjamin and Ruth (Simonds) Thompson. His paternal grandfather, in whose house he was born, was Capt. Ebenezer Thompson; his maternal grandfather had performed distinguished service in the French and Indian Wars. His father died in November 1754, and his mother in 1756 married Josiah Pierce, Jr. , of Woburn. A small inheritance from his grandfather was used toward the support and education of the boy.
Education
He attended school in Woburn, Byfield, and Medford. His writing was clear and spelling accurate, and he early showed an aptitude for drafting and mathematical studies. He studied algebra, geometry, astronomy, and higher mathematics with the Rev. Thomas Barnard of Salem, and carried on experiments and scientific discussions and correspondence with his lifelong friend, Loammi Baldwin, 1744-1807, of Woburn. In October 1769 he commenced the study of the French language at Boston and began to keep a boyish notebook which still survives and shows the breadth of his early interests. In 1771 he commenced the study of medicine with Dr. John Hay of Woburn, and while continuing with him, contrived to attend the lectures of Professor John Winthrop at Harvard.
Career
His guardians, realizing that he was not likely to develop into a thriving farmer, apprenticed him on October 14, 1766, to John Appleton of Salem, a warehouseman and dealer in British goods, with whom he remained for about three years. He seems to have performed his duties satisfactorily but to have been more interested in tools, mechanical devices, and other scientific matters.
He taught school for a short time, first probably at Bradford, Massachussets, and later at Concord, N. H. , where about November 1772, he married the wealthy widow. On their wedding tour the couple visited Portsmouth, where Thompson's fine appearance on horseback, his courtly manner, and his new family connections so impressed Governor Wentworth that he at once commissioned him to a majorship which happened to be vacant in the 2nd Provincial Regiment of New Hampshire. The appointment aroused the jealousy and resentment of experienced junior officers who were qualified for promotion. Throughout his life Thompson seems to have neglected no opportunity for his own advancement. He knew how to ingratiate himself with men of powerful position, and incurred the enmity of those of lesser rank.
Thompson's indebtedness to Governor Wentworth committed him in a manner to the British or Loyalist side in the Revolutionary War, though he seems at first to have had no strong inclination toward one side or the other. In the summer of 1774 he was summoned before a committee of the people of Concord to answer to the charge of "being unfriendly to the cause of Liberty, " but was discharged for lack of evidence. He was publicly threatened at Concord and sought refuge at Woburn, where he was again tried on a similar charge with similar result. He mingled with the patriots of Medford, Cambridge, and Charlestown, and applied for a commission in Washington's army but was refused, probably because of the disapproval of the officers from New Hampshire.
He then definitely chose the British side. Leaving Woburn on October 13, 1775, he embarked on the British frigate Scarborough at Newport. The vessel proceeded to Boston and lay in the harbor until after the town had been evacuated by the British forces in March 1776, then proceeded to England with dispatches. On reaching London, Thompson quickly secured the favor of Lord George Germain, secretary of state for the colonies, was given a position in the Colonial Office, and was soon appointed to a sinecure, the secretaryship of the Province of Georgia. He continued his experiments on gunpowder, sent a paper on cohesion to the Royal Society, became acquainted with its president, Sir Joseph Banks, and in 1779 was elected a fellow of that body. In September 1780 he was made under-secretary of state for the Northern Department, and later, probably in 1781, was commissioned lieutenant-colonel in the British army for service in America. In March 1782 he was engaged in action near Charlestown, S. C. ; he then served on Long Island until April 1783, where he commanded a regiment and built a fort for winter quarters near Huntington. In August of that year, after his return to England, he was made colonel of the King's American Dragoons.
Having retired from active service on half pay, with the King's permission to leave England, he set out in September 1783 for a tour of the Continent. At Strasbourg he met Prince Maximilian des Deux Ponts, field-marshal of France, who gave him a letter of introduction to his uncle, the Elector of Bavaria. The latter, impressed with Thompson's abilities, invited him to enter his services in a half military, half civil capacity, and Thompson returned to England to secure the permission of the King. The King approved and on Febryary 23, 1784, conferred on him the honor of knighthood. Sir Benjamin returned at once to Munich, where he was made colonel of cavalry and general aide-de-camp and in 1788 major-general, privy councilor of state, and head of the war department. On request of the Elector, the King of Poland conferred on him the Order of Saint Stanislaus. He was elected to the academies of Berlin, Munich, and Mannheim.
In 1791 the Elector of Bavaria, being at the time Vicar of the Empire, made him a count of the Holy Roman Empire, with the Order of the White Eagle; Thompson chose the title Count Rumford after the old name of Concord, N. H. He improved the living conditions of the soldiers of the Bavarian army, their homes, food, clothing, and the use of their leisure, abolished beggary in Munich, established workhouses, and devised methods and equipment for the preparation of wholesome food cheaply on a large scale. In 1790 he converted a large tract of waste land on the outskirts of Munich into the Englisches Garten, where, in 1795, upon his return to England, the citizens erected a monument in recognition of his services.
He continued his scientific experiments – on gunpowder, on the transmission of heat, on the absorption of moisture by various substances. He concluded that the large part of the heat of a hot body cooling in air is lost by radiation, and showed by his experiments on the boring of cannon and the friction of metal surfaces that heat is a mode of motion.
His improvements in heating and cooking equipment aroused much interest in England. He installed non-smoking and more efficient fireplaces in more than 150 houses of London, among them those of Lord Palmerston, Sir Joseph Banks, and the Marquis of Salisbury. Rumford Roasters came into extensive use in Great Britain and the United States. He presented £1000 at this time to the Royal Society for the establishing of a Rumford prize and medal for "the most important discovery, or useful improvement – in any part of Europe during the preceding two years, on Heat or on Light, " and $5, 000 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (of which he had been elected a foreign honorary member May 29, 1789), for the most important discovery in the same fields "in any part of the Continent of America, or in any of the American Islands. " His letters offering these funds were both dated July 12, 1796. The first award of the Royal Society's Rumford Medal was made in 1802 to Count Rumford himself.
He had previously sent for his daughter, Sarah, to whom he seems to have sent money regularly; she joined him in London, and in midsummer, 1796, accompanied him to Munich. Here, as head of the council of regency, he was able to prevent the French and Austrian armies from entering the neutral city. He did important service in feeding and sheltering the large Bavarian force which was quartered there. The Elector made him head of the department of general police of Bavaria, and later sent him to London as minister plenipotentiary of Bavaria to Great Britain. On arriving there in September 1798, he was informed that being a British subject he would not be accepted as the minister of another nation. Disappointed and relieved of his diplomatic and political duties, he remained for a time in London devoting himself to humanitarian and scientific activities.
He personally supervised the construction of the Royal Institution's building on Albemarle Street, lived there himself, and secured for the Institution the services of Humphry Davy. His life in London was not altogether happy. He was not able to carry out his plans arbitrarily and without resistance as he had done in Bavaria, and he quarreled with the managers of the Royal Institution. In October 1801 he visited Munich, where he helped plan the organization of the Bavarian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in the same month visited Paris for the first time. Here he was cordially received.
He had been elected a foreign associate of the Institute of France in 1803, attended its meetings, and from that time onward read many papers and demonstrated experiments before the Institute. He also transmitted papers to the Royal Society of London and published in its Philosophical Transactions. Some of these studies appeared in his Philosophical Papers (1802), projected as a two-volume work, of which only one volume was issued.
He studied the traction of broad and of narrow wheels, favored the former, and rode about Paris in the only carriage in the city which was equipped with broad-rim wheels. He developed his calorimeter and photometer, made improvements in lamps and illumination, and described the drip coffee pot in a fascinating essay, Of the Excellent Qualities of Coffee, and the Art of Making It in the Highest Perfection (1812).
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The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration...)
Views
Quotations:
"So great is the effect of cleanliness upon man, that it extends even to his moral character. Virtue never dwelt long with filth; nor do I believe there ever was a person scrupulously: attentive to cleanliness, who was a consummate villain. "
"To engage in experiments on heat was always one of my most agreeable employments. "
Membership
He was elected honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy of Dublin and of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures.
Personality
By temperament he was not adapted to genial companionship, and he had few friends among the French men of science. He lived a lonely life.
Connections
At Concord, N. H. he met and, about November 1772, married, the wealthy widow of Col. Benjamin Rolfe, Sarah (Walker) Rolfe (October 6, 1739 - January 19, 1792), daughter of the Rev. Timothy Walker. Their only child, Sarah, was born October 18, 1774, in the Rolfe mansion; her parents separated in May of the following year and never saw one another again.
In Paris met Madame Lavoisier, widow of the chemist. In May 1802 he left England, never to return. On October 24, 1805, married Madame Lavoisier (Marie Anne Pierrette, née Paulze). Their life together was not happy; Thompson loved flowers and tranquility, while his wife loved neither of these but wanted dinner parties and entertainments to such an extent that he found it difficult to entertain his own friends in the quiet way he enjoyed. They separated amicably on June 30, 1809, and the terms of the marriage contract were respected as regarded their joint property.