LOW-TEMPERATURE RESEARCHES 



was destined to a more picturesque career than ever fell 

 to the lot of any of his countrymen of like eminence. 

 Born on a Massachusetts farm, he was a typical "down- 

 east Yankee," with genius added to the usual shrewd, 

 inquiring mind and native resourcefulness. He was 

 self-educated and self-made in the fullest sense in 

 which those terms can be applied. At fourteen he 

 was an unschooled grocer-lad Benjamin Thompson 

 by name in a little New England village ; at forty he 

 was a world-famous savant, as facile with French, 

 Italian, Spanish, and German as with his native tongue ; 

 he had become vice-president and medallist of the 

 Royal Society, member of the Berlin National Acade- 

 my of Science, of the French Institute, of the American 

 Academy of Science, and I know not what other learn- 

 ed bodies ; he had been knighted in Great Britain after 

 serving there as under-secretary of state and as an 

 officer; and he had risen in Bavaria to be more than 

 half a king in power, with the titles, among others, 

 of privy councillor of state, and head of the war de- 

 partment, lieutenant-general of the Bavarian armies, 

 holder of the Polish order of St. Stanislas and the 

 Bavarian order of the White Eagle, ambassador to 

 England and to France, and, finally, count of the Holy 

 Roman Empire. Once, in a time of crisis, Rumford 

 was actually left at the head of a council of regency, in 

 full charge of Bavarian affairs, the elector having fled. 

 The Yankee grocer-boy had become more than half a 

 king. 



Never, perhaps, did a man of equal scientific attain- 

 ments enjoy a corresponding political power. Never 

 was political power wielded more justly by any man. 



