XX INTRODUCTION. 



Eoyal Society of London, for the reward of discoveries connected 

 with heat and light; and secondly, by the establishment in 1800 of 

 the Eoyal Institution in London, destined, primarily, for the pro- 

 motion of original discovery, and, secondarily, for the diffusion of a 

 taste for science among the educated classes. The plan was con- 

 ceived with the sagacity which characterized Kumford, and its suc- 

 cess has been greater than could have been anticipated. Davy was 

 there brought into notice by Rumford himself, and furnished with 

 the means of prosecuting his admirable experiments. He and Mr. 

 Faraday have given to that institution its just celebrity with little 

 intermission for half a century." 



Leaving England, Rumford took up his residence in France, and 

 the estimation in which he was held may be judged of by the fact 

 that he was elected one of the eight foreign associates of the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences. 



Count Rumford bequeathed to Harvard University the funds 

 for endowing its professorship of the Application of Science to the 

 Art of Living, and instituted a prize to be awarded by the Ameri- 

 can Academy of Sciences, for the most important discoveries and 

 improvements relating to heat and light. In 1804 he married the 

 widow of the celebrated chemist Lavoisier, and with her retired 

 to the villa of Auteuil, the residence of her former husband, where 

 he died in 1814. 



Having thus glanced briefly at his career, I now pass to the dis- 

 covery upon which Count Rumford's fame in the future will chiefly 

 rest. It is described in a paper published in the transactions of the 

 Royal Society for 1798. 



He was led to it while superintending the operations of the 

 Munich arsenal, by observing Jhe large amount of heat generated 

 in boring brass cannon. Reflecting upon this, he proposed to him- 

 self the following questions : " Whence comes the heat produced 

 in the mechanical operations above mentioned ? " " Is it furnished 

 by the metallic chips which are separated from the metal ? " 



