Life of Count Rumford. 433 



himself, in any printed or manuscript papers from his 

 pen which have come to my hands, to any "quarrel" 

 of his with the directors of the Royal Institution, or 

 even to any modification of his original plan found to 

 be necessary in its practical work, I drew upon the 

 kindness of its present Secretary, Dr. H. Bence Jones, 

 for such information as he might be able and disposed 

 to give me, if possible from the records. He has 

 most courteously responded by acquainting me with 

 what he knows or can surmise about the matter. He 

 writes to me that " unluckily no one took any care of 

 the original documents of the Royal Institution. The 

 digested minutes of the business are all that remain. 

 All the living letters that would have told their own 

 history are lost." Being himself engaged at present in 

 writing a sketch of the early history of the Institution, 

 he intends to show 



"How we departed from Count Rumford's scheme, and by the 

 genius of Davy became the place for scientific research. You 

 asked me about the laboratory. Essentially, Davy's and- Fara- 

 day's laboratory was that which Rumford built. But the room 

 that Rumford built was not the room he originally intended for 

 the laboratory. Workshops and model rooms for physical 

 things for the benefit of the poor and sick were more in accord- 

 ance with his ideas than a chemical laboratory. Even the 

 kitchen was far more to him than analytical investigation. 

 True, his idea of a laboratory was a kitchen and a chemist. Mr. 

 Hatchett saw that the dark room would not do, and got another 



' D 



room built with four skylights, before the model and lecture 

 rooms over the dark room were finished. In September, 1799, 

 Rumford was authorized to engage Dr. Garnett, the first Pro- 

 fessor of Chemistry and Physics. He came on the 23d of 

 December. Before P'ebruary, 1801, there was war between 

 Garnett and Rumford. It broke out regarding Garnett's lec- 

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