Life of Count Rumford. 457 



skill were engaged simply to originate or perfect his 

 most utilitarian practical objects. Of tne results of 

 many of his economical projects and inventions we 

 must also admit the same qualification. The inge- 

 nuity of an .inventive and thrifty people would be sure 

 to introduce a succession of improvements in all the 

 details and utensils of household economy. Still, be- 

 sides having done more than any one who preceded 

 him in drawing general attention to the evils and waste 

 in connection with the use of fuel and the culinary art, 

 it is undoubtedly true, that, in so far as the philosoph- 

 ical and utilitarian principles which he advocated and 

 demonstrated have failed of practical regard since his 

 own time, Count Rurnford's memory and advice -might 

 be profitably revived for the benefit of the third genera- 

 tion after his own. In the pages of a literary periodical 

 published but a few years ago in London, it was grate- 

 ful to meet the following sentences : " That untiring 

 worker, Count Rumford, c one of the worthiest of 

 England's sons,' though an American born and bred, 

 wrought an immense change in the construction of 

 grates. This was fifty [seventy] years ago ; yet the 

 generality of our fireplaces are as he left them, without 

 many of the improvements suggested by the Count. 

 The chief of these is the unsparing use of fire-clay." * 



Having attempted, by such a particular narration in 

 preceding pages, to set forth the documentary history 

 of the endowments in England and America, and of the 

 Institution in London by which Count Rumford has 

 secured a permanent and renewed public fame, and 

 reserving for subsequent mention the establishment 

 by him of a scientific professorship in the oldest seat of 



* London Reader for 1865, Vol. II. p. 428. 



