250 Life of Count Rumford. 



"LONDON, July 12, 1796. 



" To the HON. JOHN ADAMS, President of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences. 



" SIR, Desirous of contributing efficaciously to the ad- 

 vancement of a branch of science which has long employed my 

 attention, and which appears to me to be of the highest impor- 

 tance to mankind, and wishing at the same time to leave a last- 

 ing testimony of my respect for the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences, I take the liberty to request that the Academy 

 would do me the honour to accept of Five Thousand Dollars, 

 three per cent stock in the funds of the United States of North 

 America, which Stock I have actually purchased, and which I 

 beg leave to transfer to the Fellows of the Academy, to the end 

 that the interest of the same may be by them, and by their 

 successors, received from time to time, forever, and the amount 

 of the same applied and given once every second year, as a 

 premium, to the author of the most important discovery or use- 

 ful improvement, which shall be made and published by printing, 

 or in any way made known to the publick, in any part of the 

 Continent of America, or in any of the American Islands, dur- 

 ing the preceding two years, on Heat, or on Light ; the prefer- 

 ence always being given to such discoveries as shall, in the 

 opinion of the Academy, tend most to promote the good of 

 mankind. 



" With regard to the formalities to be observed by the Acad- 

 emy in their decisions upon the comparative merits of those 

 discoveries which in the opinion of the Academy may entitle 

 their Authors to be considered as competitors for this bien- 

 nial premium, the Academy will be pleased to adopt such 

 regulations as they in their wisdom may judge to be proper 

 and necessary. 



" But in regard to the form in which this Premium is con- 

 ferred, I take the liberty to request that it may always be given 

 in two medals, struck in the same die, the one of gold and the 

 other of silver, and of such dimensions that both of them 

 together may be just equal in intrinsic value to the amount of 

 interest of the aforesaid Five Thousand Dollars stock during 



