488 Life of Count Rumford. 



grateful admirer and friend of Rumford, pronounced 

 by Dr. Youmans " perhaps the greatest mind in sci- 

 ence since Newton," failed to give currency to the 

 novel conclusion which the Count had so sufficiently 

 verified. Yet the publication of Rumford's experi- 

 ments, and of the views which they led him to adopt, 

 was certainly not among the least of the agencies and 

 guides which have induced so many savans of Europe, 

 during the last twenty-five years, to make a profound 

 study of the relations of forces, a study the signal re- 

 sults of which now enrich so many learned essays. In- 

 deed, so numerous have been the inquirers in this field, 

 and so mutually helpful and suggestive have been the 

 contributions made by each of them to the common 

 stock of the philosophy of forces, that it is impossible 

 to distribute among them the respective shares of award 

 for their individual help in assuring the now accepted 

 theories. The names of Englishmen, Danes, Germans, 

 Frenchmen, and Americans are gathered on the list of 

 those who by speculation, theory, or experiment have 

 followed in the track of Rumford without finding rea- 

 son to leave it. Seguin of France, Grove and Joule of 

 England, Mayer of Germany, and Colding of Den- 

 mark, the earlier disciples of the new theory, have found 

 successors in Helmholtz, Holtzman, Clausius, Faraday, 

 Thompson, Rankine, Tyndall, Carpenter, and others. 

 Professor Henry and Leconte, in the United States, 

 have also made contributions to the theory and litera- 

 ture of the subject. 



Dr. Huxley does not fail to assign to Rumford the 

 high place belonging to him for his leadership in " the 

 theory of the persistence or indestructibility of force." * 



* Lecture on the Advisableness of improving Natural Knowledge. 



