222 Biographical Memoir of Count Runtford. 



civilized countries, his name is now connected with the most 

 efficacious aids that industry can receive. This honour much 

 excels those which have been decreed to the Apiciuses of ancient 

 and modern times ; I would even venture to say, to many men 

 who have been celebrated for discoveries of a higher order. 



In one of his establishments at Munich, three women were 

 sufficient to prepare a dinner for a thousand persons, and they 

 burnt only ninepence worth of fuel. The kiichen which he con- 

 structed in the Hopital de la Pieta at Verona, is still more per- 

 fect, there being burnt in it only the eighth part of the wood 

 which was formerly consumed. 



But it was in the employment of steam for heating,"^ that 

 Count Rumford, so to speak, surpassed himself. It is known 

 that water kept in a vessel which it is unable to burst, acquires 

 an enormous heat. Its vapour, at the moment when it is 

 let loose, carries this heat wherever it is directecL Baths and 

 apartments are thus heated with wonderful quickness. Ap- 

 plied to soapworks, and especially to distilleries, this method 

 has already enriched several manufacturers of our southern de- 

 partments ; and in the countries where new discoveries are more 

 slowly adopted, it has afforded immense advantages. The brew- 

 houses and distilleries of England are heated in this way. In 

 them a single small copper cauldron boils ten large wooden 

 vats. 



Count Rumford went so far in these improvements as even 

 to economise all the heat of the smoke, which he only allowed 

 to issue from his apparatus after it had become almost perfectly 

 cold. A person justly celebrated for the elegance of his mind, 

 said to him that he would soon cook his dinner with his neigh- 

 bour's smoke. But it was not for himself that he sought economy. 

 His varied and often repeated experiments, on the contrary, cost 

 him much, and it was only by dint of lavishing his money, that 

 he taught others to save theirs. 



He made nearly as many researches on light as on heat, and 

 among his results, the following observations are principally 

 worthy of notice ; that flame is always perfectly ti'ansparent and 

 permeable to the light of another flame ; and that the quantity 

 of light is not in proportion to that of the heat, and that it does 

 not depend, like the latter, upon the quantity of matter burnt> 



