June 16, 1899. ] 



SCIENCE. 



839 



pet projects was the establishment of a 

 dining-room in the house where experi- 

 mental dinners could be ordered, to test the 

 merit of any new method of cooking or any 

 new dish that may be proposed. To at- 

 tain the second of the primary objects of 

 the Institution, Rumford proposed to fit up 

 a lecture room for philosophical lectures and 

 experiments and to provide a complete 

 laboratory and philosophical apparatus for 

 making chemical and other experiments. 

 Only men of the first eminence in science 

 were to be invited to " ofiiciate in the most 

 important and distinguished situation of 

 lecturers," and, to judge from the prospec- 

 tus, they were to confine themselves to 

 the most severely practical applications of 

 science. 



For the first two or three years Rumford 

 devoted all his energy to the realization of 

 his ideas, and it is evident enough that dur- 

 ing that time he was the ruling spirit of the 

 Institution. The first part of his scheme to 

 be brought into operation was the course of 

 philosophical lectures. These were begun 

 in March, 1800, Dr. Garnett being the first 

 professor. For a time a temporary lecture- 

 room was used, but it was not long before 

 the theatre, built from the designs of Web- 

 ster, was brought into occupation. This 

 room, which is singularly successful in its 

 acoustic properties, remains substantially 

 unaltered at the present day, the chief 

 structural changes being the abolition of a 

 stone staircase that led directly from the 

 upper gallery to the street, and the improved 

 exit, which was finished only a month or 

 two ago. The onlj' other important event 

 in the first year of the Institution's exist- 

 ence was the appointment of 14 committees 

 for the purpose of specific scientific investi- 

 gations ; but that the managers had not the 

 least idea of promoting what we should 

 now call original research in pure science is 

 obvious from the subjects into which they 

 were to inquire. Rumford's hand is plainly 



discernible in the list, which includes bread, 

 soup, cottages, stoves, household furniture, 

 food for cattle, mortar and cement, fireballs 

 and combustible cakes, etc. In the next 

 two years still greater progress was made. 

 The chemical laboratory was brought into 

 use, and a director, operator and assistant 

 were appointed ; the workshops, in which 

 models of new and useful inventions were 

 to be constructed and sold at reasonable 

 prices to subscribers and professors, were 

 finished and provided with the best tools 

 obtainable ; a number of skilled mechanics 

 were engaged, and arrangements were made 

 for the reception of ingenious and well- 

 behaved young men, who were to be 

 boarded in the house, working in the work- 

 shops by day and in the evening attending 

 classes in drawing, practical geometry and 

 mathematics, under the direction of the 

 clerk of the works (Mr. Webster). 



But in 1802 a change began to make it- 

 self felt. Doubtless the circumstances that 

 personal reasons caused Rumford to leave 

 England and relinquish the superintend- 

 ence of the Institution was not without 

 influence, but the main factor was want of 

 money. Rumford was perhaps justified in 

 writing early in 1801 that the Institution 

 was ' not only the fashion, but the rage '; 

 but in 1802 the case was certainly difierent. 

 In 1799 the income was £6,.379and in 1800 

 £11,047, but in 1801 it fell to £3,474 and in 

 1802 to £2,999, while at the same time the 

 expenses were increasing. In short, the 

 state of affairs became so bad that the idea 

 was seriously discussed of closing the place 

 and selling ofi" its property to pay its debts. 

 Luckily, however, it was saved, and the 

 management passed into the hands of men 

 stigmatized by Sir Joseph Banks as ' the 

 enemy ' and ' the profane,' which was, per- 

 haps, his way of saying that they possessed 

 some businesslike instincts. Quietly drop- 

 ping the kitchens, the models, the work- 

 shops and the school for mechanics, in 



