32 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



boiling-point, but uses more than five times as much heat as is 

 necessary to heat the same quantity of water from the freezing- 

 point, and at the same time destroys the taste by carrying off the 

 volatile flavors. His cooking was done in closed vessels, covered 

 with wood or some other non-conducting material, to prevent the 

 radiation of heat, in fact constructed on the same principle as the 

 calorimeter he employed for scientific research. All these lessons 

 Mr. Edward Atkinson and others have been vainly trying to teach 

 us in recent years. The " fireless cooker" now coming into use is a 

 belated application of Rumford's idea. 



To obviate the great waste of heat in roasting on a spit before 

 an open fire, he invented the sheet iron oven known as the "Rum- 

 ford roaster." A dripping-pan filled with water prevented the 

 decomposition of the fat by the high temperature, and the flues 

 were arranged so that a blast of hot air could be passed over the 

 meat to brown it when it was cooked. 



In 1795, after eleven years in Munich, Rumford returned to 

 England for the purpose of publishing his essays on heat and its 

 utilization, and on public institutions for the poor. He was then 

 at the height of his renown as scientist and philanthropist, and 

 was everywhere received with great honor. In England and Ire- 

 land he assisted in the establishment of soup-kitchens and work- 

 houses, and introduced into public institutions his system of heat- 

 ing and cooking by steam. Models of his fireplaces, stoves and 

 cooking utensils were placed on exhibition for workmen to copy, 

 for he always refused to take out patents on his inventions. He 

 writes that at this time he "had not less than five hundred smok- 

 ing chimneys on my hands" in public and private buildings, 

 many of them chronic and thought incurable. The great waste 

 of heat in the old-fashioned fireplace shocked his economical 

 nature, and he studied the scientific principles involved, in order 

 to check the excessive consumption of fuel, increase the radiation 

 in the room, and prevent loss of fuel in the smoke. He proved 

 the best possible proportions for the chimney recess of the open 

 fireplace to be that the width of the back should equal the depth 

 from front to back and that the width of the front should be 



