40 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



the most distinguished scientists of Europe and America, beginning 

 in 1802 with Rumford himself. The American Academy, on the 

 contrary, found the plan "absolutely impracticable" and, for 

 forty-three years during which very great progress was made in 

 the knowledge of light and heat, and especially in such practical 

 applications as improved stoves and lamps which Rumford espe- 

 cially favored, no award was made. The fund by 1829 had grown 

 so large that the courts were called upon to allow the money to 

 be expended for the promotion of science in other ways, such as 

 lectures, books and apparatus. Count Rumford seems to have 

 changed his mind as to the value of this method of promoting the 

 advancement of science, for when he founded the Royal Institu- 

 tion a few years later he expressly prohibited all premiums and 

 rewards. The Rumford Fund of the American Academy now 

 amounts to $58,722, and gives an annual income of more than 

 half the original gift, which is expended for the furtherance of 

 researches in heat and light. 



Before leaving England in 1797 Count Rumford was joined by 

 his daughter whom he had left an infant in America twenty-two 

 years before. His wife had died five years before at the age of 

 fifty-two. Many of the letters of his daughter are printed in 

 Ellis's Life of Count Rumford, and give an interesting picture of 

 society at the Bavarian court as seen by the New England girl, 

 as well as a self-revelation of the transformation of Sally Thomp- 

 son into Sarah, Countess of Rumford. She expected to find her 

 father dark in complexion, for her childish impressions had been 

 formed from the only portrait her mother had of him, a silhouette 

 profile. Her mother had told her that he had " carroty" hair, 

 whereas she found it "a very pretty color." He had bright blue 

 eyes and a sweet smile. Dr. Young of the Royal Institution says, 

 "in person he was above middle size, of a dignified and pleasing 

 expression of countenance and a mildness in his manner and tone 

 of voice." In disposition, however, he was authoritative and 

 dictatorial. Always a brilliant conversationalist, he was inclined 

 in his later years to monopolize the table talk, and he made him- 

 self unpopular by promptly correcting, from his wide experience 



