126 Professor Tyndall [Mav 3. 10, and 17, 



Banks, then President of the Eoval Society : " I take the liberty to 

 request that the Eoyal Society wonld do me the honour to accept of 

 £1000 stock in the Funds of this country, which I have actually 

 purchased, and which I beg leave to transfer to the President, 

 Council, and Fellows of the Eoyal Society, to the end that the 

 interest of the same may be by them, and by their successors, received 

 from time to time for ever, and the amount of the same applied and 

 given once every second year, as a premium to the author of the most 

 important discovery or useful improvement which shall be made, or 

 published by printing, or in any way made known to the public, in any 

 part of Europe, during the preceding two years, on Heat or Light.'' 



He adds in a subsequent letter, as further defining his wishes, 

 that the premium should be limited to new discoveries tending to 

 improve theories of Fire, of Heat, of Light, and of Colours, and to 

 new inventions and contrivances by which the generation, and pre- 

 servation, and manacrement of heat and of light mav be facilitated. 

 The device and inscriptions on the medal were determined by a com- 

 mittee. It was resolved " that the diameter of the medal do not 

 exceed three inches, and that Mr. Milton be employed in sinking the 

 dies of the said medal." Two medals are always given, one of gold, 

 the other of silver, and a snm of about seventy pounds usually accom- 

 panies the medals. Eumford himself was the first recipient of the 

 medal. The second was given to Sir John Leslie, the founder's cele- 

 brated rival in the domain of radiant heat. On the same date 

 Eumford presented to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 

 the same sum for the promotion of the same object. Li fact the 

 letters to Sir Joseph Banks and to the Honourable John Adams, then 

 President of the American Academv. are identical in terms. For a 

 long series of vears the American Academv did not consider that 

 the candidates for the medal had reached the level of merit which 

 would justify its award. Xo award was therefore made ; and in 1829 

 the Eumford bequest had increased from five thousand to twenty 

 thousand dollars. After some litigation the terms of the bequest 

 were extended to embrace applications of it far beyond the design of 

 the testator. Permission was obtained to apply the fund to the 

 publication of books, or methods of discovery, bearing on the Count's 

 favourite subjects of experiment ; and to the aid and reward of scien- 

 tific workers. Thus, in 1839, Dr. Hare, of Philadelphia, received from 

 the Academy six hundred dollars for his invention of the compound 

 blow-pipe, and his improvements in galvanic apparatus. In 18G2 the 

 Eumibrd medal was awarded to Mr. John B. Ericsson for his caloric 

 engine ; while Mr. Alvan Clark, so celebrated for his improvements of 

 the refracting telescope, and the eminent Dr. John Draper of the 

 University of Xew York, have been also numbered among the 

 recipients. 



Accompanied bv his daughter, Eumford returned to Germanv 

 in 1796. "Three weeks' constant travel; circuitous routes to avoid 

 troops ; bad roads ; still worse accommodations ; passing nights in 



