Life of Count Rumford. 251 



two years : that is to say, that they may together be of the 

 value of Three Hundred Dollars. 



" The Academy will be pleased to order such device or 

 inscription to be engraved on the die they shall cause to be 

 prepared for striking these medals, as they may judge proper. 



"If during any 'term of two years, reckoning from the last 

 adjudication, or from the last period for the adjudication of this 

 Premium by the Academy, no new discovery or improvement 

 should be made in any part of America, relative to either of the 

 subjects in question (Heat or Light), which, in the opinion of 

 the Academy shall be of sufficient importance to deserve this 

 Premium, in that case, it is my desire that the Premium may 

 not be given, but that the value of it may be reserved, and by 

 laying out in the purchase of additional stock in the American 

 funds, may be applied to augment the capital of this Premium ; 

 and that the interest of the sums by which the capital may, 

 from time to time, be so augmented, may regularly be given in 

 money with the two medals, and as an addition to the original 

 Premium at each succeeding adjudication of it. And it is 

 further my particular request, that those additions to the value 

 of the Premium arising from its occasional non-adjudication 

 may be suffered to increase without limitation. 



" With the highest respect for the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences, and the most earnest wishes for their success 

 in their labours for the good of mankind, 



" I have the honour to be, with much Esteem and Regard, Sir, 

 Your most Obedient, Humble Servant, 



" RUMFORD." 



His intended donation was first announced by this 

 letter from Count Rumford read at a meeting of the 

 Academy, November 9, 1796, accompanied by the gift 

 of a volume of his Essays, and of what is described in 

 the records as his <c bust," though it was a small bass- 

 relief profile. The delay in the receipt of the proper 

 papers, and in the negotiation connected with the trans- 



