28 Biographical Memoir of Count Rumford. 



sashes with weights, so that they ascend as soon as loosened, and 

 when the light is again to be admitted, are easily pulled down by 

 cords and fastened. In addition to the accommodation already men- 

 tioned, there is a large irregular room under the floor of the lecture 

 room on the eastern side. This is used as a place to stow a number 

 of cumbrous and unsightly articles, which are nevertheless, of a na- 

 ture to be very useful at times. Also for such purposes, and for con- 

 taining fuel, there is a spacious cellar under the lecture room and 

 laboratory. 



Art. IV. — Biographical Memoir of Sir J^enjamin Thomson, Count 

 Rumford; hy Baron Cuvier.* 



From the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. 



Benjamin Thomson, more commonly known by his German ti- 

 tle of Count Rumford, was born in 1753, in the English Colonies 

 of North America, at a place then called Rumford, and at present 

 Concord, belonging to the State of New Hampshire. His family, 

 was of English origin, and cultivated som^ lands there ; and he himself 

 has said that he should probably have remained in the humble con- 

 dition of his parents, had he not in childhood been deprived of the lit- 

 tle means they were able to bequeath to him. Thus, like many other 

 literary characters, it was to early misfortune that he owed his sub- 

 sequent good fortune and celebrity. 



His father died young. His mother having married again, he was 

 separated from her by his stepfather; and his grandfather, from 

 whom alone he had any thing to expect, had disposed of all that he 

 possessed in favor of a younger son, and left him in almost complete- 

 destitution. 



There is nothing more calculated to induce a premature devel- 

 opment of intellect than such a condition as this. The young Thom- 

 son attached himself to a clergyman of learning, who undertook to 

 prepare him for the mercantile profession, by giving him a smatter- 

 ing of mathematics. But the good minister also spoke sometimes 

 to him of astronomy, and his lessons in that science benefited his pu- 

 pil more than he had foreseen. 



The young man brought him one day the plan of an eclipse which 

 he had traced according to a method which had suggested itself to 



" Read (c <he Institute of France. 



