J 44 COUNT RUMFORD. 



with a rapidity which would girdle the equatorial earth 

 eight times in a second ; while the tremors of this sub- 

 stance, in one form, constitute what we call light, and, 

 in all forms constitute what we call radiant heat. Not 

 seeing this connection between great and small; not 

 discerning that as regards the illustration of physical 

 principles there is no great and no small, the wits, con- 

 sidering the small contemptible, permitted sarcasm to 

 flow. But these things have passed away, otherwise it 

 would not be superfluous to remind this audience, as 

 a case in point, that the splendour which in the form 

 of the electric light now falls upon our squares and 

 thoroughfares, has its germ and ancestry in a spark 

 so feeble as to be scarcely visible when first revealed 

 within the walls of this Institution. 



It is with reluctance that I take the slightest ex- 

 ception to what my American friends have written 

 regarding Rumford and his achievements. But what 

 they have written induces me to assure them that the 

 scientific men of England are not prone to stinginess 

 in recognising the merits of their fellow-labourers in 

 other lands ; and had Rumford, instead of accom- 

 plishing none of his work in the land of his birth, 

 accomplished the whole of it there, his recognition 

 among us here would not be less hearty than it is now. 

 As things stand, national prejudice, if it existed, might 

 be expected to lean to Rumford's side. But no such 

 prejudice exists, and to write as if it did exist is a 

 mistake. In reference to myself, Dr. Ellis, gently but 

 still reproachfully, makes the following remark: — 

 * Professor Tyndall, in his work on " Heat," has but 

 moderately recognised the claims and merit of Rum- 

 ford, when, after largely quoting from his essay, he adds, 

 " When the history of the dynamical theory of heat is 



