490 Life of Count Rumford. 



Sundays, into the barn-like and teeth-chattering meet- 

 ing-houses. Franklin had preceded him by a few years 

 in devising those iron jambs, united by a narrow mantel 

 at the top, which were inserted nearly on the front of an 

 old deep fireplace, that had in the mean while been par- 

 titioned by an apron of brick-work or an iron back like 

 a gravestone, through an orifice between the top of 

 which and the throat of the chimney the smoke could 

 pass off. As a boy, most probably, Benjamin Thomp- 

 son had helped his mother to bring in one of the old- 

 fashioned New-England " back-logs," four feet in 

 length, from the trunk of a hard-wood tree, for her 

 kitchen fire, the only fire kept in such a home, except 

 on gala-days. Rumford had seen the Franklin fire- 

 places in use, and he introduced substantially the really 

 excellent qualities of them in his own plans. But very 

 soon after the Franklin models had become common, 

 the original provision made by Franklin for the circu- 

 lation of air through them was neglected. Rumford 

 found that if he would meet the demands of the Eng- 

 lish people, he must gratify the national preference for 

 meats roasted, fried, and broiled, above those prepared 

 by boiling or stewing. He had also to provide, if pos- 

 sible, for apparatus which in the summer season would 

 allow for the preparation of food without heating the 

 apartment, while the apparatus would answer in the 

 winter alike for cooking and warming. The rigidly 

 practical and experimental way in which he tested every 

 scheme and method that he put on trial, and the 

 conscientious scrupulousness with which he proved all 

 his processes before he made them public, together with 

 the admirable candor with which he would recognize 

 and announce his own mistakes, insured a practical 



