THIRD ORDINARY MEETING. . 29' 



Humphry Davy, then only in his twenty- third year. The extent 

 of his attainments, the originality of his ideas, and the fluency of his 

 delivery, combined, perhaps, with his youth and good looks, took the 

 London world by storm. The Eoyal Institution became the fashion. 

 The gay world crowded to Davy's lectures, and Rumford's boilers 

 and soup-kitchens Avere elbowed out of the way. The chair of Natu- 

 ral Philosophy was filled by Dr. Young — that extraordinary genius 

 who added to his brilliant mathematical attainments, not only the 

 command of nearly all ancient and modern languages, and a know- 

 ledge of botany of no mean order, but also I'emarkable proficiency 

 in music, and, what is certainly not common among professors of 

 Natural Philosophy — wonderful skill and daring as a circus rider. 

 He was soon succeeded, hov/ever, by Dalton, who described his new 

 colleague, Davy, as a '' veiy agreeable and intelligent young man, 

 whose principal defect as a philosopher was that he did not smoke I" 

 Men like these were sufiicient to establish the renown of the Royal 

 Institution ; and the names of Faraday and Tyndal, who succeeded 

 them, are enough to show that they found worthy successors. 



As an exponent of science the Royal Institiition addresses itself 

 almost exclusively to the upper classes. Rumfoi'd's projects have 

 been to a large extent carried out by another institution, in whose 

 foundation he had no share — the Society of Arts. 



Rumford himself soon returned to Bavaria, where he only remained 

 a short time, and spent the closing years of his life in great retire- 

 ment in Paris. He seems to have made few friends among the 

 Parisians, partly because of his peremptory and unyielding disposi- 

 tion, and partly because of his eccentricities. Among the latter was 

 his habit of wearing in winter a white coat and hat in order to 

 reduce the radiation of heat from his body to a minimum. 



At the time of the foundation of the Royal Society the scope of 

 natural knowledge was so limited that one society was sufiicient to 

 include all those who pursued scientific research ; and yet, as early 

 as 1664 — that is the year after the society received its amended 

 charter — eight committees were struck for the purpose of furthering 

 investigation in different directions. As, however, the number of 

 known facts in each branch of science increased, and the field for 

 further investigation opened ou.t pari passu, while the number of 

 special workers was also rapidly multiplied, one society was nO' 



