Life of Count Rumford. 267 



awarded. And that the books, papers, and apparatus so pur- 

 chased shall be used, and such lectures, experiments, and in- 

 vestigations be delivered and made, either in the said Academy 

 or elsewhere, as the plaintiffs shall think best adapted to promote 

 such discoveries and improvements as aforesaid, and either by 

 the Rumford Professor of Harvard University or by any other 

 person or persons, as to the plaintiffs shall from time to time 

 seem best." 



The court also authorized the investment of the 

 fund, or any part of it, in other first-class securities than 

 government bonds.* 



It is easy to express the obvious suggestion, that the 

 enlargement and direction thus allowed by judicial de- 

 cision to the use of the trust fund committed by Count 

 Rumford to the Academy, for one specified and well- 

 defined object, exceed any possible construction that 

 can be put upon the liberal terms of his deed of gift. 

 But it is just as easy to meet the suggestion by affirm- 

 ing that the judicial decree has in view, and aims, it 

 may even be said, most conscientiously to fulfil, the 

 intent of the donor. Under its decision the Academy 

 may make the munificence of Count Rumford most 

 serviceable at the fountain-head and sources of that 

 scientific development which alone can secure biennially, 

 or at longer or shorter intervals, a signal result mark- 

 ing a point in the flow of the stream. Books and 

 lectures presenting the last discoveries, or methods for 

 discovery, in the Count's favorite subjects of experi- 

 ment, may be regarded as even something better than 

 an alternative in the improvement of his fund, to the 

 use of it for a medal or premium under the pressure of 

 a supposed obligation to bestow it with chief reference 

 to the lapse of two years. 



* Gray's Report:. Vol. XII. pp. 582- 602. 



