PREFACE. 



TN 1796 Count Rumford gave to the American Academy of 

 * Arts and Sciences five thousand dollars three per cent 

 stock in the funds of the United States, " to the end that the 

 interest of the same may be ... applied, and given once 

 every second year as a premium to the author of the most 

 important discovery or useful improvement which shall be 

 made and published by printing, or in any way made known 

 to the public, in any part of the continent of America, or in 

 any of the American islands, during the preceding two years, 

 on Heat or on Light." . . . For a long period of time succeed- 

 ing this gift, no discovery or useful improvement in Heat or 

 Light, which at once satisfied the terms of the trust, and 

 was deemed by the Fellows worthy of the premium, was 

 brought to the notice of the Academy ; and in 1831 the Rum- 

 ford Fund had already accumulated to twenty-three thousand 

 dollars. In this year the Academy brought a Bill in Equity 

 before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, "praying 

 relief in the matter of the Rumford Fund ; " and thereupon a 

 decree was made, which, while it affirmed the object of the 

 gift and insured the execution of the trust by qualifying some 

 of the limitations by which the award of the Rumford pre- 

 mium was originally restricted, also authorized the Academy 

 " to appropriate from time to time, as the same can advan- 

 tageously be done, the residue of the income of said fund 

 hereafter to be received, and not so as aforesaid awarded in 

 premiums, to the purchase of such books and papers and 

 philosophical apparatus (to be the property of said Academy), 

 and in making such publications or procuring such lectures or 



