1883.] Professor Tyndall on Count Rmnford, d'c. 407 



Professor Tyndall, D.C.L. LL.D. F.R.S. M.E.I. 



On Count Bumford, Originator of the Boyal Instit^ition. 



(Lectures delivered May 3, 10, and 17, 18S3.) 



On a bright calm day in the autumn of 1872 — that portion of the 

 year called, I believe, in America the Indian summer — I made a 

 pilgrimage to the modest birthplace of Count Eumford, the originator 

 of the Royal Institution. My guide on the occasion was Dr. George 

 Ellis of Boston, and a more competent guide I could not possibly 

 have had. To Dr. Ellis the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 

 had committed the task of writing a life of Eumford, and this laboui' 

 of love had been accomplished in 1871, a year prior to my visit to 

 the United States. In regard to Rumford's personal life. Dr. Ellis's 

 elaborate volume constitutes, if I may so speak, the quarry out of 

 which the buildino- materials of these lectures are drawn. The life 

 of such a man, however, cannot be duly taken in without reference to 

 his work, and the publication by the American Academy of Sciences 

 of four large volumes of Rumford's essays renders the task of dealing 

 with his labours lighter than it would have been, had his writings 

 been suffered to remain scattered in the magazines, journals, and 

 transactions of learned societies to which they were originally com- 

 municated. 



The name of Count Eumford was Benjamin Thompson. For 

 thirty years he was the contemporary of another Benjamin, who 

 reached a level of fame as high as his own. Benjamin Franklin and 

 Benjamin Thompson were born within twelve miles of each other, and 

 for six of the thirty years just referred to the one lived in England 

 and the other in France. Yet there is nothing to show that they 

 ever saw each other, or were in any way acquainted with each other, 

 or, indeed, felt the least interest in each other. As regards post- 

 humous fame, Rumford has in England fared worse than Franklin. 

 For ten, or perhaps a hundred, people in this country, who know 

 something of the career of the one, hardly a unit is to be found 

 acquainted with the career of the other. Among scientific men, how- 

 ever, the figure of Rumford presents itself with singular impressive- 

 ness at the present day — a result mainly due to the establishment 

 of the grand scientific generalisation known as the Mechanical 

 Theory of Heat. Boyle, and Hooke, and Locke, and Leibnitz, had 

 more or less distinctly ranged themselves on the side of this theory. 

 But by experiments conducted on a scale unexampled at the time, 

 and by reasonings, founded on these experiments, of singular force 

 and penetration, Rumford has made himself a conspicuous landmark 



Vol. X. (No. 76.) 2 e 



