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NATURE 



\yan. 14, 1875 



of memorial on the simple principle that strict justice 

 should precede generosity. The object being to per- 

 petuate arid honour the memory of such a man, the first 

 step should be to do justice to his memory, and this 

 cannot be done unless his works are collected in an 

 available and presentable form. The most perfect of 

 monumental epitaphs is Sir Christopher Wren's in St. 

 Paul's Cathedral — 



" Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice." 



A handsomely printed record of the life-work of any 

 original investigator might bear a similar inscription. 

 The justice of such an epitaph would be absolutely 

 complete. 



That Count Rumford himself took this view of the 

 matter is evident from the fact that on recovering from 

 the illness which in 1793-94 nearly finished his career, he 

 left Bavaria and came to London in September 1795 for 

 the purpose of publishing a collection of these same 

 essays which the American Academy have now re- 

 printed, and that he left London in 1802 when their 

 publication was completed. His narrow>escape from 

 death had evidently suggested the necessity of losing no 

 more time in thus doing justice to his own memory. 



But it is not every scientific investigator who finds an 

 appreciative monarch, like the Elector of Bavaria, willing 

 to reward so munificently the services of intellect ; there 

 are but few who can afford to indulge in the expensive 

 lu.\ury of printing books which the uneducated millions 

 and the ill-educated thousands are equally incapable of 

 appreciating. The professional publisher is prohibited 

 from undertaking such work, from the simple fact that 

 much activity in that direction would land him in the 

 Bankruptcy Court. Here, then, is a clear demand for 

 uncommercial effort, if the memory of great men is to be 

 preserved and the full advantages of their labour are to be 

 reaped by their fellow-creatures. 



We should do well here in England by at once com- 

 mencing a great national effort in this direction. Local 

 patriotism would be appropriately directed by starting 

 the subscription for a republication fund in every town or 

 village which has the honour of having given birth to a 

 worthy worker in science ; and our learned societies 

 might carry out the work as the American Academy 

 has done in this case. Birmingham has done well in 

 erecting the noble statue of Priestley that fitly decorates 

 the approach to the Birmingham and Midland Institute ; 

 but the student who admires the sculptured presentation 

 of the great philosopher performing his great experiment 

 has considerable difficulty in finding the full original 

 record of this scientific exploit. How very interesting to 

 the general student, either of science or of human nature, 

 would be a complete collection of all the far- scattered and 

 diverse works of Priestley's posverful and wide-grasping 

 intellect ! At present they are practically buried. The 

 same may be said of the majority of the inductive philo- 

 sophers, from Horrocks, Gilbert, and Galileo, down to the 

 name on the latest scientific obituary. Such collections 

 of the works of our great philosophers would be a worthy 

 complement to the Royal Society's invaluable index of 

 scientific papers. 



The following list of the subjects treated in the three 

 volumes already published sufficiently indicates the variety 

 of Rumford's work : — 



A Method of determining the Velocity of Projectiles ; 

 Experiments to determine the Force of fired Gunpowder ; 

 Experiments with Cannon, and Improvements in Field 

 Artillery ; The Production of Air from Water ; The 

 Quantities of Moisture absorbed from the Air by various 

 substances ; The Propagation of Heat in Fluids ; The 

 Final Cause of the Saltness of the Sea ; Chemical 

 Affinity and Solution, and the Mechanical Principle of 

 Animal Life ; The Propagation of Heat in various sub- 

 stances ; The Source of the Heat which is excited by 

 Friction ; An Inquiry into the Weight ascribed to Heat ; 

 The Nature of Heat, and the Mode of its Communica- 

 tion ; Experimental Investigations concerning Heat ; 

 Reflections on Heat ; Historical Review of the various 

 Experiments of the Author on the subject of Heat ; 

 Experiments and Observations on the Cooling of Liquids 

 in Vessels of Porcelain, gilded and not gilded ; Account 

 of a curious Phenomenon observed on the Glaciers of 

 Chamouni ; New E.xperiments on the Temperature of 

 Water at its Maximum Density ; The Propagation of 

 Heat in Liquids ; Adhesion of the Particles of Water 

 to each other ; The slow Progress of the Spontaneous 

 Mixture of Liquids ; The Use of Steam as a vehicle for 

 transporting Heat ; The Means of increasing the Quan- 

 tities of Heat obtained in the Combustion of Fuel ; De- 

 scription of a New Boiler ; The Use of the Heat of Steam 

 in the making of Soap ; Experiments on Wood and Char- 

 coal ; Heat developed in the Combustion and in the Con- 

 densation of Vapours ; The Capacity for Heat of various 

 Liquids ; The Structure of Wood, &c. ; Chimney Fire- 

 places ; the Management of Fire, and the Economy of 

 Fuel ; The Construction of Kitchen Fireplaces and 

 Kitchen Utensils ; The various Processes of Cookery, 

 and Proposals for improving that most useful art ; The 

 Management of Fires in closed Fireplaces. 



One remarkable feature of Count Rumford's papers is 

 their simplicity and clearness. They are all readable, to 

 the least initiated in scientific technicalities. There is no 

 pedantry, no vain display of unnecessary formula; ; but, 

 on the contrary, every page displays the clear and purely 

 scientific intellect of the writer. It matters not whether 

 he is discussing the proper shape of a saucepan lid, 

 the flavouring properties of a red herring, or the 

 deepest mysteries of molecular force ; whether he describes 

 his method of eating a plate of hot pudding, or of reor- 

 ganising and commanding the Bavarian army — the same 

 thoroughness and simplicity of pure inductive and deduc- 

 tive reasoning prevails. He seems to have been incapable 

 of thinking of any subject other than systematically and 

 scientifically ; and to this fixed habit of mind his mar- 

 vellous success in the solution of the most difficult social 

 and military problems is clearly traceable. His last effort, 

 the essay on " The Nature and Effects of Order," upon 

 which he laboured so long during the last years of his 

 fading life, and which the feebfeness of his over-tired 

 intellect prevented him from finishing, was apparently 

 intended as a vindicatioir of his peculiarly strict and 

 systematic method of doing everything, which was so 

 miserably misunderstood by his eulogist Cuvier, his in- 

 tensely French wife, and the Frenchmen by whom he was 

 surrounded and ridiculed during his latter days. To do 

 such work as Rumford achieved, and do it all so coolly 

 without any sentimental flourishes, without drums, or flags, 



