Life of Co^lnt Rumford. 263 



might justly be entitled to the premium of the honor 

 which it would confer. The committee above named 

 say in their Report, that the premium had not up to 

 that date been awarded, "none of the discoveries or 

 improvements for which it has been claimed being 

 deemed by the Academy of sufficient importance to 

 deserve it." The Report continues : 



" By constant accumulation the fund has now increased to 

 the sum of nearly $20,000. The history of science in other 

 countries unites with our own experience to convince us that 

 Count Rumford's plan, contemplating the assignment of a 

 biennial premium for important discoveries or useful improve- 

 ments on light and heat first made public within two years pre- 

 ceding, and interrupted only by l occasional non-adjudications,' 

 is absolutely impracticable. Such discoveries and improvements 

 are not often made, and many of those which are made require 

 more than two years to test their merit. It is perfectly mani- 

 fest that the non-adjudication must be the regular and usual 

 course, and that the assignments of the premium must be 

 occasional, and even rare. The very increase of the fund con- 

 stantly increases the difficulty of bestowing the premium ; for 

 the Academy are expressly directed to award it only to improve- 

 ments or discoveries of sufficient importance in their opinion to 

 deserve it, and an invention may merit a premium of $ 300, 

 which is altogether unworthy of one of $2,000. A strict com- 

 pliance with the incidental request that the fund should increase 

 indefinitely may therefore prevent the assignment of any pre- 

 mium at all, and thus entirely defeat the great object of the 

 foundation, and render it totally useless. To permit such a 

 result is not a faithful fulfilment of the intentions of the 

 donor. 



" If it be found, by long experience, that a rigid adherence to 

 particular limitations, not essential to the main object of the 

 Institution, tends to defeat that object, it must be presumed that 

 the founder would wish those limitations modified, and it is the 

 bounden duty of the Academy, and of all who have an interest 



