THIRD ORDINARY MEETING. 29 
Humphry Davy, then only in his twenty-third year. The extent 
of his attainments, the originality of his ideas, and the fluency of his. 
delivery, combined, perhaps, with his youth and good looks, took the 
London world by storm. The Royal Institution became the fashion. 
The gay world crowded to Davy’s lectures, and Rumford’s boilers 
and soup-kitchens were elbowed out of the way. The chair of Natu- 
ral Philosophy was filled by Dr. Young—that extraordinary genius 
who added to his brilliant mathematical attainments, not only the 
command of nearly all ancient and modern languages, and a know- 
ledge of botany of no mean order, but also remarkable proficiency 
in music, and, what is certainly not common among professors of 
Natural Philosophy—wonderful skill and daring as a circus rider. 
He was soon succeeded, however, by Dalton, who described his new 
colleague, Davy, as a “ very agreeable and intelligent young man, 
whose principal defect as a philosopher was that he did not smoke !” 
Men like these were sutticient to establish the renown of the Royal 
Institution ; and the names of Faraday and Tyndal, who succeeded 
them, are enough to show that they found worthy successors. 
As an exponent of science the Royal Institution addresses itself 
almost exclusively to the upper classes. Rumford’s projects have 
been to a large extent carried out by another institution, in whose 
foundation he had no share—the Society of Arts. 
Rumford himself soon returned to Bavaria, where he only remained 
a short time, and spent the closing years of his life in great retire- 
ment in Paris. He seems to have made few friends among the 
Parisians, partly because of his peremptory and unyielding disposi- 
tion, and partly because of his eccentricities. Among the latter was 
his habit of wearing in winter a white coat and hat in order to 
reduce the radiation of heat from his body to a minimum. 
At the time of the foundation of the Royal Society the scope of 
natural knowledge was so limited that one society was sufficient: to 
include all those who pursued scientific research ; and yet, as early 
as 1664—that is the year after the society received its amended 
charter—eight committees were struck for the purpose of furthering 
investigation in different directions. As, however, the number of 
known facts in each branch of science increased, and the field for 
further investigation opened out pari passu, while the number of 
special workers was also rapidly multiplied, one society was no 
