238 Life of Count Rumford. 



Preparation, and on Fuel, were widely circulated here, 

 both in copies of the English edition, which he sent to 

 his many friends, and in the Boston reprint. The sim- 

 plicity, homeliness, and experimental good sense of the 

 subject-matter of their text, and the admirable diagrams 

 and the plates which illustrated them, made them in- 

 telligible to all readers, and prompted a general desire 

 to put his improvements under practical trial. They 

 were especially popular in Salem, where many of the 

 flourishing citizens had occasion to recall over their 

 dinners the apprentice-boy in Mr. Appleton's store. 

 The distinguished minister of the First Church in that 

 town, Dr. Prince, the successor to young Thompson's 

 friend Barnard, himself a most successful cultivator of 

 experimental science, is said to have set up the first 

 Rumford Roaster in his own house, at the beginning 

 of the century ; it remained in constant use there till 

 within ten years, when the house was sold. 



A curious anecdote is told in connection with the 

 " Roaster," in a charming biography of one of the emi- 

 nent men of Massachusetts of the last age, that of- 

 Chief-Justice Theophilus Parsons, by his son, the Law 

 Professor of the same name. The biographer says that 

 his father had imported, in or about 1807, a complete set 

 of the apparatus, and having had it placed in his upper 

 kitchen, was very proud of it. He found that from its 

 novelty and the ignorance of his cook it required for a 

 time his own oversight, when at last, by his patient in- 

 struction of his servant, everything went well. On the 

 strength of the new cooking apparatus he had invited a 

 large dinner-party, and the Roaster proved equal to the 

 occasion. Judge and Mrs. Sever, of Kingston, excel- 

 lent people of the old school, were among his guests, 



