THIRD ORDINARY MEETING. ie 
to shed immortal lustre on the Society and on his country, under the 
name of Sir Isaac Newton. At a meeting held on the 28th of April, 
1686, Newton presented his Principia, which, however, the Society 
had not funds to publish, its resources having been exhausted by the 
recent publication of a treatise on fishes. ; 
But time would fail me tospeak of Cavendish, of Davy, of Frank- 
lin, of Priestly, of Wollaston, of Brewster, of Buckland, of Faraday, 
of Herschel, and of a host of others who, from its foundation to the 
present day, have contributed to make famous the Royal Society of 
London. 
So far as the object of its founders was concerned, the Promotion 
of Natural Knowledge—the encouragement of investigation and re- 
search—the Royal Society was nobly fulfilling the hopes that were 
entertained of it, and the expectations of its friends. But in order 
that a nation may advance in science it is not enough that it has 
philosophers, it is necessary that the resuits of the labours of its 
philosophers should be communicated to the nation at large, and that 
the public should be educated up to be able to understand and appre- 
ciate them. As yet there was no provision for this, But with the 
hour came the man. This man was Benjamin Thompson, better 
known by his title of Count Rumford, a name familiar to everybody, 
although of the man himself much less is generally remembered than 
his merits deserve. It may not be familiar to all of us that his title 
is derived from the New Hampshire village in which he was born in 
the middle of the last century, a village then called Rumford, but 
now known as Concord. His youth was that of a typical Yankee 
boy. He took a keen interest in chemical experiments, and although 
the Fourth of July had not yet been invented, he blew himself up: 
with fireworks before he was sixteen. He served as clerk in a dry 
goods store in Boston, taught school, and, at the age of twenty, mar- 
ried a wealthy widow, and became a major of militia. At this junc- 
ture the Revolutionary War broke out and Thompson took the King’s 
side. Sent with despatches to England he found favour in influen- 
tial quarters, received a public appointment, and, returning to his 
youthful tastes, began a course of scientific investigations, and was 
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He madea friend of Hardy, 
and all through the campaign of 1799 he was on board the Victory, 
making experiments in gunpowder. We next find him Colonel of 
the King’s American Dragoons, at the head of which he served with 
