^nGICATs^^ 



THIRD ORDINARY MEETING. f 2f 



to shed immortal lustre on the Society and on his oouoaiicjfrWader the 

 name of Sir Isaac Newton. At a meeting held on the 28th of April^ 

 1686, Newton presented his Principia, which, however, the Society- 

 had not funds to publish, its resources having been exhausted by the 

 recent publication of a treatise on fishes. 



But time would fail me to speak of Cavendish, of Davy, of Frank- 

 lin, of Priestly, of Wollaston, of Brewster, of Buckland, of Faraday^ 

 of Herschel, and of a host of others who, from its foundation to the 

 present day, have contributed to make famous the Royal Society of 

 London. 



So far as the object of its founders was concerned, the Promotion 

 of Natural Knowledge — the encouragement of investigation and re- 

 search — the Royal Society was nobly fulfilling the hopes that were 

 entertained of it, and the expectations of its friends'. But in order 

 that a nation may advance in science it is not enough that it has 

 philosophers, it is necessaiy that the I'esults of the labours of its 

 philosophers should be communicated to the nation at large, and that 

 the public should be educated up to be able to understand and appre- 

 ciate them. As yet there was no provision for this. But with the 

 hour came the man. This man was Benjamin Thompson, better 

 known by his title of Count Rumfox'd, a name familiar to everybody, 

 although of the man himself much less is generally remembered than 

 his merits deserve. It may not be familiar to all of us that his title 

 is derived from the New Hampshire village in which he was born in 

 the middle of the last century, a village then called Rumford, but 

 now known as Concord. His youth was that of a typical Yankee 

 boy. He took a keen interest in chemical experiments, and although 

 the Foui'th of July had not yet been invented, he blew himself up 

 with fireworks before he was sixteen. He served as clerk in a dry 

 goods store in Boston, taught school, and, at the age of twenty, mar- 

 ried a wealthy widow, and became a major of militia. At this junc- 

 ture the Revolutionary War broke out and Thompson took the King's 

 side. Sent with despatches to England he found favour in influen- 

 tial qiiarters, received a public appointment, and, returning to his 

 youthful tastes, began a course of scientific investigations, and was 

 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He made a friend of Hardy, 

 and all through the campaign of 1799 he was on board the Victory, 

 making experiments in gunpowder. "VVe next find him Colonel of 

 the King's American Dragoons, at the head of which he served with. 



