102 COUNT RTJMFORD. 



To secure this wise end he adopted unwise means. * A 

 vacancy having occurred in a majorship in the Second 

 Provincial Regiment of New Hampshire, Governor 

 Wentworth at once commissioned Thompson to fill it.' 

 Jealousy and enmity naturally followed the appoint- 

 ment of a man without name or fame in the army, over 

 the heads of veterans with infinitely stronger claims. 

 He rapidly became a favourite with the governor, and 

 on his proposing, soon after his appointment, to make 

 a survey of the White Mountains, Wentworth not 

 only fell in with the idea, but promised, if his public 

 duties permitted, to take part in the survey himself. 

 It will be remembered that at this time Thompson 

 was not quite twenty years old. 



For a moment, in 1773, he appears in the character 

 of a farmer, and invokes the aid of a friend to procure 

 for him supplies of grass and garden seeds from Eng- 

 land. But amid preoccupations of this kind his 

 scientific bias emerges. After a brief reference to the 

 seed procured for him by his friend Baldwin, he pro- 

 poses to the latter the following question : ' A certain 

 cistern has three brass cocks, one of which will empty 

 it in fifteen minutes, one in thirty minutes, and the 

 other in sixty minutes. Qu. How long would it take 

 to empty the cistern if all three cocks were to be 

 opened at once ? If you are fond of a correspondence 

 of this kind, and will favour me with an easy question, 

 arithmetical or algebraical, I will endeavour to give as 

 good an account of it as possible. If you find out an 

 answer to the above immediately, I hope you will 

 not take as an affront my proposing anything which 

 you may think so easy, for I must confess I scarce ever 

 met with any little notion that puzzled me so much in 

 my life.' 



In 1774 the ferment of discontent with the legisla- 



