Nipher — Physics During the Last Century. 109 



where he brought about a revolution in military tactics, in 

 industrial education, in the manufacture of arms and ord- 

 nance, in the suppression of organized beggary, in the im- 

 provement in construction of the dwellings of the poor, in 

 the introduction of superior breeds of horses and cattle, and 

 in bringing into existence a public park where the grateful 

 people afterwards erected a monument to his honor. For 

 these great services he received many honors, among others 

 being made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. He chose 

 as a title the name of his New Hampshire home, and was 

 afterwards known as Count Rumford. He returned to 

 England and founded the Royal Institution of England. The 

 o;reat service which that Institution has rendered to the 

 science of the last century is sufficiently indicated by a mere 

 mention of the names of the great men who have been pro- 

 fessors there. Beginning with Thomas Young, we have Sir 

 Humphrey Davy, Michael Faraday, John Tyndall, and in 

 our day Lord Rayleigh and Professor Dewar. 



Rumford afterwards took up his residence in France, be- 

 came one of the eight foreign associates of the Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris, and married the widow of the great chemist 

 Lavoisier.* 



Davy was brought to Rumford' s attention by some ingen- 

 ious experiments which he made upon heat, although at first 

 his ideas were far from clear. He showed that cakes of ice 

 might be melted by friction upon each other when in an 

 atmosphere where no melting could occur when the friction 

 ceased. This work of Rumford and Davy, supplemented by 

 the powerful adhesion of Thomas Young, was apparently 

 without effect for nearly half a century. But it was not 

 without effect. The seed had been sown, and the results 

 showed themselves in the almost simultaneous appearance of 

 different phases of a new and comprehensive generalization, 

 the Conservation of Energy. 



In 1842, Dr. J. R. Mayer of Heilbron, a physician, published 

 a paper in which for the first time an attempt was made to 

 determine the height through which a body must fall, in 



* In our time Rumford's biography and works, in six volumes, have been 

 made public by Ellis. 



