LITERARY NOTICES. 



245 



American Academy of Arts and Sci- 

 ences, instituted in 1780. Five thou- 

 sand dollars were presented, the accru- 

 ing interest of which was to be invest- 

 ed in medals, and granted biennially by 

 the academy for the most important 

 discoveries in relation to heat or light 

 made within the preceding two years. 

 It was also provided that, if this term 

 passed without any discovery or im- 

 provement being made that should be 

 deemed worthy of the award, the ac- 

 cruing interest was to be added to the 

 principal, and the augmented income 

 thus arising was to be added to the 

 medals when the next award was made. 

 But the arrangement seemed to be a 

 futile one, as there were none in 

 America who troubled themselves to 

 extend the knowledge of heat and 

 light ; or, at all events, there were no 

 such extensions as in the opinion of the 

 Academy were entitled to win the 

 prizes. Years passed, and the money 

 accumulated until the Academy became 

 embarrassed by the question what to 

 do with it. And so they got a law 

 passed by the Legislature empowering 

 them to depart from the strict letter of 

 the endowment, and use the funds with 

 more freedom in the interest of ad- ' 

 vancing knowledge. In 1839 the Acad- 

 emy gave from the interest of the Rum- , 

 ford fund the sum of $600 to Dr. Hare, 

 of Philadelphia, in consideration of his 

 invention of the compound blowpipe, 

 and his improvement in galvanic appa- 

 ratus. The Rumford medal was grant- 

 ed by the Academy, in 1862, to John B. 

 Ericssen for his caloric - engine ; in 

 1865 to Daniel Treadwell, for improve- 

 ments in the management of heat ; in 

 1867 to Alvau Clark, for improvement 

 in the lens of the refracting telescope ; 

 and in 1870 to George H. Corliss, for 

 improvements in the steam-engine. 

 When the gift was made to Dr. Hare, 

 the fund amounted to $27,000 ; and it 

 has now grown to $42,000. 



The biographer of Rumford makes 

 the following significant observation : 

 " It is remarkable that the count, after 



having liberally provided funds for 

 medals in the award of two learned 

 bodies, should a few years afterward, 

 when drawing his plan and publishing 

 his proposals for his own Royal Institu- 

 tion, have introduced into them an ex- 

 press prohibition of all premiums and 

 rewards." 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



On Fermentation. By P. Schutzenberger. 

 With Twenty-eight Illustrations. Pp. 

 306. Price, $1.50. D. Appleton & Co. 

 No. XX. International Scientific Series. 



In the logic of science, the misleading 

 influence of words is a matter of ever-in- 

 creasing importance. Words remain, but 

 the ideas they represent are altered, ex- 

 panded, revolutionized. The old and nar- 

 row meanings live on in common speech, 

 and the changed and enlarged significations 

 are current among men of science, so that 

 when the terms are employed between these 

 classes they have so totally different a sig- 

 nification that intelligent and critical in- 

 terchange of ideas between them is hardly 

 possible. The term applied to the pres- 

 ent work is a case in point. The word ; 

 " fermentation " is derived from fervere, 

 to boil, and applies to the agitation or, 

 effervescence of saccharine liquids when 

 placed in contact with ferments a phe- 

 nomenon that was probably familiarly 

 known long before the earliest traces of> 

 history. To the mass of people, the word 

 " fermentation" suggests bread-making and 

 brewing, with the production of spirituous 

 and souring products. To the man of science 

 and as treated in the present volume, fer- 

 mentation has become one of the great 

 gateways to biology. The subject has ever 

 been, and must continue to be, of great 

 practical moment in its domestic and manu- 

 facturing relations ; and every step in its 

 scientific elucidation is therefore a contri- 

 bution to the theory and progress of the 

 arts. The knowledge of it has now become 

 so clear and extended, that it was necessary 

 it should be brought together in a special 

 treatise for reference for all who are in- 

 terested in practical problems of organic 

 chemistry. But while the present book 

 fulfills this condition, it also aims at the 



