THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



669 



by the president, with the recommenda- 

 tion that provision be made for the 

 appointment of a board of surveys to 

 superintend national surveys and ex- 

 plorations in the islands. This board 

 would consist of representatives of the 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Geolog- 

 ical Survey, the Biological Survey, the 

 Division of Botany, the Forest Service, 

 the Bureau of Fisheries and the Bureau 

 of American Ethnology. The presi- 

 dent urges that while these surveys 

 would be beneficial to the inhabitants 

 of the Philippine Islands, they should 

 be undertaken as a national work valu- 

 able for the people of this country and 

 of the world. It is to be hoped that 

 congress will find time to take up this 

 measure at the approaching session. 



THE RUMFORD FUND. 

 The American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences has published a pamphlet re- 

 garding the Rumford Fund admin- 

 istered by it which contains some facts 

 of general scientific interest. Benjamin 

 Thompson, who was created a count by 

 Prince Maximilian of Bavaria and who 

 chose to be called Count Rumford after 

 a New Hampshire town from which the 

 family of his wife had come, was born 

 in Massachusetts in 1753 and died in 

 France in 1814. He founded the Royal 

 Institution of Great Britain in 1799, 

 and by a bequest established the Rum- 

 ford professorship for the application 

 of science to the useful arts at Har- 

 vard University. In 1796 he gave to 



the Royal Society of Great Britain and 

 to the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences of Boston the sum of $5,000, 

 the income of which in each case was 

 to be given once every second year to 

 the author of the most important dis- 

 covery or useful improvement made 

 during the preceding two years in heat 

 or in light. The premium was to take 

 the form of medals. An illustration 

 of the medal awarded by the American 

 Academy is here reproduced. 



The Royal Society made the first 

 award from the fund of Count Rum- 

 ford himself in 1802; and every second 

 year since, with the exception of several 

 years, the medal has been awarded. 

 The list of those on whom the premium 

 has been conferred by the Royal So- 

 ciety is an illustrious series of men of 

 science closing with Professor Ernest 

 Rutherford, of McGill University, on 

 whom it was conferred in 1904. The 

 Royal Society was not limited in re- 

 gard to the nationality of those on 

 whom the premium could be conferred, 

 but the American Academy by the 

 terms of the gift could only confer it 

 on authors on the continent of America 

 or the American Islands. It appears 

 that for many years there was no 

 claimant whose merit was such in the 

 opinion of the academy as to justify the 

 award, and the fund accumulated to 

 the amount of $20,000, when in 1831 

 application was made to the Supreme 

 Ccurt of Massachusetts for relief. It 

 was ordered that in addition to the 



The Rumford Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences-. 



