A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



who are here in question. It would matter little if 

 there were no portrait at all of Rumford here, for all 

 the world knows that the Royal Institution itself is in 

 effect his monument. His name will always be linked 

 in scientific annals with the names of Young, Davy, 

 Faraday, and Tyndall. And it is worthy such asso- 

 ciation, for neither in native genius nor in realized 

 accomplishments was Rumford inferior to these suc- 

 cessors. 



FROM LIQUID CHLORINE TO LIQUID HYDROGEN 



Nor is it merely by mutual association with the his- 

 tory of the Royal Institution that these great names 

 are linked. There was a curious and even more last- 

 ing bond between them in the character of their 

 scientific discoveries. They were all pioneers in the 

 study of those manifestations of molecular activity 

 which we now, following Young himself, term energy. 

 Thus Rumford, Davy, and Young stood almost alone 

 among the prominent scientists of the world at the 

 beginning of the century in upholding the idea that 

 heat is not a material substance a chemical element- 

 but merely a manifestation of the activities of particles 

 of matter. Rumford 's papers on this thesis, communi- 

 cated to the Royal Society, were almost the first widely 

 heralded claims for this then novel idea. Then Davy 

 came forward in support of Rumford, with his famous 

 experiment of melting ice by friction. It was perhaps 

 this intellectual affinity that led Rumford to select 

 Davy for the professorship at the Royal Institution, 

 and thus in a sense to predetermine the character of 

 the scientific work that should be accomplished there 



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