204 Sir John Evans. [Jan. 17 y 



verted into 5030 Great Northern Railway Perpetual 4 per cent- 

 Guaranteed Stock, producing an income of about 200 per annum. 

 In the year 1879 the late Sir Walter C. Trevelyan bequeathed a sum 

 of 1500, the interest to be applied in the promotion of scientific 

 research. This was invested in the purchase of 1396 Great 

 Northern Railway 4 per cent. Debenture Stock, now converted into 

 1861 6s. 8d. 3 per cent. Debenture Stock, and forms practically a 

 part of the Donation Fund. The interest of the Jodrell Fund is also- 

 transferred to it, so that the annual income is about 390. The 

 grants last year, however, amounted to 665, though they left a 

 balance of 364 5s. 4c7. in hand. 



No. 3. THE RUMFORD FUND. 



Count Rumford, in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks dated 12th July,. 

 1796, informed him, as President of the Society, that he had pur- 

 chased and transferred 1000 Stock in the funds of this country,, 

 to the end that the interest of the same should be given once every 

 second year as a premium to the author of the most important dis- 

 covery 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 on light, the pre- 

 ference always being given to such discoveries as shall, in the opinion 

 of the President and Council, tend most to promote the good of 

 mankind. The premium is to take the form of two medals, the one- 

 of gold and the other of silver, to be together of the value of two- 

 years' interest on the 1000, or 60 sterling. In case of there being 

 no new discovery in heat or light during any term of years which, in 

 the opinion of the President and Council, is of sufficient importance 

 to deserve the premium, direction is given to invest its value in the 

 purchase of additional stock in the English Funds, and the interest 

 of this additional capital is to be given in money, with the two- 

 medals, at each succeeding adjudication. In a subsequent letter, 

 Count Rumford suggests that the premium should be limited to new 

 discoveries tending to improve the theories of fire, of heat, of light, 

 and of colours, and to new inventions and contrivances by which the 

 generation, and preservation, and management of heat and of light 

 may be facilitated. Chemical discoveries and improvements in optics, 

 so far as they answer any of these conditions, are to be within the 

 limits of the premium, but the Count wishes especially to encourage 

 such practical improvements in the management of heat and light as 

 tend directly and powerfully to increase the enjoyments and comforts 

 of life, especially in the lower and more numerous classes of society. 

 The first recipient of the medals was Count Rumford himself. 

 Previously to 1846 it was not unfrequently the case that no medal 



