THOMPSON, Sir Benjamin, Count Rumford, a well-known natural philosopher and political economist, was born in 1753, at a village in New Hampshire, then called Rumford, and now Concord. His father died while he was very young, and his mother married another man, who banished him from her house almost in his infancy: he inherited only a small pittance from an uncle, who died soon after his father. Aclergyman named Bernard showed him great kindness, and taught him some of the higher mathematics at an early age, so that at fourteen he was able to calculate and delineate an eclipse of the sun. He had been intended for some commercial employment, but he preferred the pursuit of literature in any form: he attended the lectures of Dr Williams, and afterwards those of Dr Winthrop the astronomer, at Harvard College; and while he was still a stripling, he was established in the temporary occupation of a village school-master; hoping, however, for an early opportunity to engage in some more agreeable employment: and at nineteen, he was fortunate enough to obtain the hand of Mrs Rolfe, daughter of Mr Walker, a clergyman, who had been employed with considerable credit in conducting some public business. For a year or two he lived retired and happy; but having obtained a commission of major in the militia from the governor of the province, together with some other distinctions of a civil nature, he was consequently led to adhere to the party of the Royalists; and he was soon obliged, by the success of the Independent forces, to take refuge at Boston, then occupied by the English troops. It was in November 1773 that he secretly quitted his residence, leaving his wife, whom he never saw again, and his infant daughter, who joined him twenty years after in Europe. He was employed to raise a regiment for the king’s service; but when Boston was evacuated in 1776, he was sent with some important despatches to England. Here he soon acquired the confidence of Lord George Germaine, then colonial secretary of state, and was appointed secretary of the province of Georgia, though he never exercised the office; but he remained attached to that department of the public service.

In 1777 he commenced his career as an experimental philosopher, by employing his leisure hours, during a visit to Bath, in making some experiments on the cohesive strength of different substances; and upon his return to London, be communicated them to Sir Joseph Banks, with whom he formed an intimate acquaintance, which he kept up throughout the remainder of his life. In 1778 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society, and he made in that year his first experiments on gunpowder. In order to pursue these experiments, he went, in 1779, on board of the Victory, of 110 guns, commanded by his friend Sir Charles Hardy. He passed the whole campaign on board the fleet; and the results of the observations which he then made, furnished the materials of a chapter which he contributed to Stalkart’s Treatise on Naval Architecture. He added to it a code of signals for the navy, which was net published. In 1780 he was appointed under-secretary of state, and he was constantly employed, for some little time, in the office on the business of the war. He succeeded, by means of his American friends and agents, in raising a regiment of cavalry, called the King’s American Dragoons, of [7:21:246]which he was appointed lieutenant-colonel commandant; and this success induced him to go to America to serve with it. At Charlestown he was intrusted with the command of the remains of the cavalry of the British army. He speedily restored the discipline of the corps, and gained its confidence and attachment: he often led it against the enemy, and frequently with considerable success. He proceeded, in 1782, to New York, where he assumed the command of his own regiment, having received the colours from the hand of Prince William Henry. In the autumn, General Clinton was succeeded by Sir Guy Carlton, whose friendship and confidence he speedily obtained. His regiment was recruited from the fragments of several others, and he was sent for the winter to Huntingdon in Long Island. In 1783 he was chosen to conduct the defence of Jamaica, which was then threatened by the enemy; but the general peace superseded the necessity of the intended expedition.

After his return to England, he made great efforts in the cause of the loyalist officers, and he was successful in persuading the ministry to make a proper provision for them. He was himself raised to the rank of colonel, upon the recommendation of General Carlton, only two years after his appointment as lieutenant-colonel. He had acquired a strong predilection for a military life, and was desirous of being sent with his regiment to the East Indies; and when the regiment was reduced, he wished to serve with the Austrians in a war which was then meditated against the Turks. With this view he left England in September 1783, and on his passage to Boulogne, he had an agreeable shipmate in the person of Gibbon the historian, who did justice to his merits as a “soldier, philosopher, and statesman.” At Strasburg, his appearance on the parade in his uniform excited the attention of the late king of Bavaria, then Prince Maximilian of Deux Ponts, who invited him to his table, and being delighted with the accuracy and extent of his military knowledge, gave him a strong recommendation to his uncle, then elector; and instead of a day or two, as he had intended, he staid a fortnight at Munich. He was also very cordially received at Vienna, and passed a part of the winter there; but the war against the Turks not taking place, he returned by Venice and the Tyrol to Munich, where he arrived in the winter of 1784; and being formally invited by the elector to enter his service, he went to London to ask leave to accept the proposal; and it was granted him, together with the honour of knighthood. On his return to Bavaria, he was made a colonel of cavalry, and aide-de-camp-general to the elector. The first four years of his residence at Munich were principally employed in acquiring information, and in preparing his plans of reform; and in the mean time he continued his physical researches. He made his first experiments on heat in 1786, during a journey to Manheim. In 1785 he was made chamberlain to the elector, and member of the academies of Munich and of Manheim; in 1786 he received from the king of Poland the order of St Stanislas; in 1787 he took a journey to Berlin, and was made a member of the Academy of Sciences of that city; in 1788 he was appointed major-general of the Bavarian cavalry, and privy counsellor of state; and he was placed at the head of the war department, in order to pursue his plans for the improvement of the army.

It was in 1789 that he established the House of Industry at Manheim. He founded also the Military Academy of Munich; he improved the military police of the country; he formed schools of industry for the wives and children of the soldiers; and he embellished the city by a new arrangement of the public gardens. The House of Industry at Munich, which he has described at large in his Essays, was founded in 1790; and from this period may be dated the total abolition of mendicity in Bavaria. His exertions were rewarded by the rank of lieutenant-general of the Bavarian armies, and by a regiment of artillery. In 1791 he was created a count of the holy Roman empire, and obtained the order of the white eagle. His health having suffered from constant application, he obtained permission to take a journey into Switzerland and Italy, and he returned to Bavaria in 1794. He had a severe illness at Naples, and he was not sufficiently recovered, upon his return, to resume his active duties; but he employed himself in writing the first five of his Essays. In 1795, he came to England in order to publish the Essays, and in hopes of exciting the public attention to the importance of attempting a similar reform among the lowest orders in Great Britain. He went to Dublin in 1796, to pay a visit to Lord Pelham, afterwards earl of Chichester, then secretary of state for Ireland; and he was of essential service in the arrangement of several of the public institutions of that country. He was made a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts; and after having left the country, he received the public thanks of the grand jury of the county of Dublin, and of the lord mayor of that city, as well as of the lord lieutenant at the head of the government. Upon his return to London, he superintended some improvements at the Foundling Hospital, and presented several models of machines and implements to the board of agriculture; and he established two prizes, for discoveries relating to heat and light, by placing two sums of L.1000 in the British and in the American funds, to be adjudged biennially, for Europe by the Royal Society of London, and for America by the American Academy of Sciences.

He was recalled to Bavaria by the exigencies of the moment, which were such as to cause the elector to take refuge in Saxony; General Moreau having advanced with his army to the confines of Bavaria. After the battle of Friedberg, Count Rumford was left in command of the Bavarian army, with instructions to act according to his discretion under the circumstances that might occur; and his firmness was such as to prevent either the Austrians or the French from entering Munich. On the elector’s return, he was placed at the head of the department of the general police of Bavaria. His exertions in this office were such as to impair the state of his health, and by way of an honourable retirement, he was sent to London in the capacity of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary; but being a subject of the king of Britain, he was judged incapable of being received as the diplomatic agent of a foreign court, and he therefore continued to live in England as a private individual. He was very active about this period in projecting and superintending the establishment of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, which was more particularly intended for the application of science to the conveniences and comforts of civil and domestic life, but which has been no less successful in giving opportunity and facility to some of the most refined researches in chemistry and natural philosophy that have distinguished the age, than in serving as a medium for making the treasures of science accessible to the less studious part of the public, and as a model for a variety of other similar undertakings in different parts of the world.

Count Rumford was soon afterwards officially invited to America by the government of the United States, with an offer of an honourable establishment in a public situation; but he considered it as inconsistent with his engagements in Europe to accept the proposal. In the autumn of 1800, when he went to Scotland, a visit of ceremony was paid to him by the magistrates of Edinburgh. He was consulted respecting the abolition of mendicity, and the measures which he recommended were speedily executed with complete success. He was made an honorary member of the Royal Society and of the Royal College of Physicians of Edin [7:21:247]burgh; and he received a gold snuff-box as a compliment for his assistance in reforming the culinary establishment of Heriot’s Hospital.

After so active and diversified a career, it was not to be expected that he would be satisfied with the monotony of a permanent residence in London. He was so accustomed to labour for the attainment of some object, that when the object itself was completely within his reach, and the labour was ended, the prospect, which ought to have been uniformly bright, became spontaneously clouded, or the serenity even became unenjoyable for want of some clouds to afford a contrast. He had fitted up a small house at Brompton, with every contrivance for comfort and convenience that could render it fit for the abode of hospitality and of luxury; and the arrangements are fully described in the Bibliothèque Britannique of his friend Professor Pictet; but after all he never was known to give a single entertainment in it. The enthusiasm excited by the novelty of some of his inventions had subsided; and he was even mortified by becoming, in common with the most elevated personages of the country, the object of the impertinent attacks of a popular satirist. It was partly, however, if not entirely, the superiority of the climate of France, that determined him to remove to Paris in the spring of 1802. He went in the summer to Munich, and the following year he made a tour in Switzerland and in Bavaria, accompanied by Mademoiselle Lavoisier, whom he married soon after their return; but their habits were incompatible with matrimonial comfort, and they separated soon after; Count Rumford retiring to Auteuil, about four miles from Paris, where he occupied a house which had formerly belonged to Helvetius and to Cabanis, while his lady continued to live in the metropolis. His latter years were passed almost wholly in solitude; he saw only his neighbour Mr Cane-leux, Mr Underwood, and a Mr Parker, an American. He did not even attend the sittings of the Institute, though he had been made one of its eight foreign associates some time before, and always retained a high esteem for its secretary’ Cuvier, and for some others of its members. His income was abundantly sufficient for his own expenses; for he had obtained from the gratitude of the king of Bavaria a pension of L.1200 a year; and he was allowed by Bonaparte to remain unmolested, though a British subject, when it was found that he had no intercourse with society, amusing himself principally in walking about his garden, and in a solitary game of billiards. In the latter part of his life he bad so completely persuaded himself of the great superiority of broad wheels above narrow ones, that he drove about the streets of Paris in a broad-wheeled chariot; and having rediscovered, after Professor Leslie, that black bodies radiate more heat than others, he wore, in the winter, a white hat and a white coat, in order to economize the heat of his person. “These peculiarities, and a peremptory unyielding disposition,” says one of his biographers, “were the causes that set him apart from social intercourse, and in all his connexions in life seem to have rendered him less the object of personal attachment than of esteem for his talents and activity.” He was about to return to England when he died, on the 2lst of August 1814, leaving only one daughter, who afterwards resided in his house at Brompton.

1. Count Rumford’s first publication appears to have been the chapter on Marine Artillery which he furnished to Stalkart’s Treatise on Naval Architecture, 1780.

2. New Experiments on Gunpowder, with the Description of an Eprouvette. Phil. Trans. 1781, p. 230. The effect of the powder on the ball was measured by the recoil of the piece, with a correction deduced from the recoil when the piece was empty. It was observed to be sooner heated when fired without ball than with it. The force of the powder is made at least 1300 atmospheres, upon Robins’s principles.

3. New Experiments upon Heat. Phil. Trans. 1786, p. 273. These experiments relate principally to the conducting powers of various mediums for heat; but the results are unavoidably complicated with the effects of radiation, in consequence of which a vacuum is supposed to possess a conducting power more than half as great as that of common air.

4. Experiments on the Production of Dephlogisticated Air from Waterwith various Substances. Phil. Trans. 1787, p. 84. These experiments tend to show that the air obtained by Priestley and Ingenhousz, from plants under water, was derived rather from the water itself than from the substances immersed in it.

5. Experiments made to determine the Positive and Relative Quantities of Moisture absorbed from the Atmosphere by various Substances. P. 240. He finds that wool is more absorbent of moisture than any other substance compared with it; and hence explains the supposed advantage of woollen worn next the skin.

6. Experiments on Heat. Phil. Trans. 1792, p. 48. The author attributes the effect of loose substances in obstructing the passage of heat to their attraction for air, and to their impeding its circulation; and he supposes this to be the only manner in which elastic fluids communicate heat.

7. Account of a Method of Measuring the Comparative Intensity of Light emitted by Luminous Bodies. Phil. Trans. 1794, p. 67.

8. Letter announcing a Donation for a Prize Medal. Phil. Trans. 1797, p. 215.

9. Experiments to determine the Force of Fired Gunpowder. P. 272. This force he supposes to amount to between 20,000 and 50,000 atmospheres, instead of 10,000, as Bernoulli computed it; but he makes a great mistake in supposing that the whole of the water which can possibly be contained in the gunpowder would be sufficient to furnish as much steam as would be required, since steam, under a pressure of 20,000 atmospheres, must be considerably more dense than water itself.

10. Inquiry concerning the Source of the Heat excited by Friction. Phil. Trans. 1798, p. 80. The capacity of the chips of iron afforded by friction in boring a cannon, was found not to differ from that of the iron in its original state: hence it is inferred that the heat could not have been furnished by them, and that it must probably have been generated. Mr Haldalt afterwards repeated the experiment under circumstances still more decisive; and Sir Humphry Davy showed that two pieces of ice rubbed together, in a room below the freezing temperature, would melt each other.

11. Inquiry concerning the Chemical Properties that have been attributed to Light. P. 449. He attributes these properties to the effect of an intense heat confined to a small space; but the latter experiments on the chemical effects of the spectrum are sufficient to supersede this opinion.

13. An Account of a Curious Phenomenon observed on the Glaciers of Chamouny, with some Observations on the Propagation of Heat in Fluids. Phil. Trans. 1804, p. 23. An effect depending on the expansion of water in cooling near the freezing point.

14. Concerning the Nature of Heat, and the Mode of its Communication. P. 77. He conjectures that cold is a positive quality, capable of being propagated by radiation.

Several of these memoirs were reprinted under the title of Philosophical Papers, vol. i. Lond. 1802, 8vo.

15. The Essays constitute four volumes 8vo. Lond. 1795-1800. Reprinted 1800. In French, 2 v. 8. Genev. 1799. Recueil de Rapports...sur les Soupes. Par. 1801. They are eighteen in number, i. Account of an Establishment for the Poor at Munich. In Ital. 8. Venice, 1798. ii. On Establishments for the Poor in general, iii.
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Of Food, and of Feeding the Poor. iv. Of Chimney Fireplaces. V. Account of several Public Institutions formed in Bavaria, vi. On the Management of Fire, and the Economy of Fuel. vii. On the Propagation of Heat in Fluids, extending to Liquids the doctrine which he had before advanced respecting Elastic Fluids, viii. On the Propagation of Heat in various Substances. Phil. Trans, ix. Experimental Inquiry concerning the Source of Heat excited by Friction, x. On Kitchen Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. xi. On Chimney Fire-places, xii. On the Salubrity of Warm Rooms in Cold Weather, xiii. On the Salubrity of Bathing, and the Construction of Warm Baths, xiv. Supplementary Observations on the Management of Fires. XV. On the Use of Steam for Transporting Heat. xvi. On the Management of Light in Illumination, with an Account of a new Portable Lamp, xvii. On the Source of the Light manifested in the Combustion of Inflammable Bodies, xviii. On the excellent Qualities of Coffee, and the Art of making it in Perfection.

16. There are several little papers on Steam Kitchens, on the Strength of Soft Materials, and on some other similar subjects, in the first numbers of the Journals of the Royal Institution. 8. Lond. 1800.

17. The series of investigations relating to Heat and Light, which Count Rumford began to communicate to the Royal Society, were continued, and rather more fully detailed, in several of the volumes of the Memoirs of the Institute, Mathematical Class; into which they were of course admitted as the productions of a foreign associate. The first of these is in the sixth volume. 4. Par. 1806, p. 71, containing a Description of a new Instrument; a Thermoscope, or a Differential Thermometer, resembling that of Leslie. ( 18.) The second, p.74. Researches on Heat; showing the Effect of the Difference of Surface on Radiation. (19.) iii. P. 88. Further Experiments; on the Effect of blackening the Surface. (20.) iv. P. 97. Researches continued; on the different Properties of Bodies with respect to Radiation, and to Conducting Power. (21.) v. P. 106. Further Researches; some good Experiments on the Passage of Heat through Solids. (22.) vi. P. 123. Experiments on the Heat of the Solar Rays; which was found not to be affected by their convergence or divergence, or by their having met in a focus and crossed each other. (23.)

vii. Vol. vii. i. 1806, p. 78. Remarks on the Temperature of Water at the Maximum of Density; making it 41° of Fahrenheit, or 5° centigrade. Phil. Trans. 1804. (24.)

viii. Vol. viii. i. 1807, p. 223. On the Dispersion of the Light of Lamps by Screens of Ground Glass, Silk, and so forth, with a Description of a new Lamp. (25.) ix. P. 249. On the Cooling of Liquids in Vases of Porcelain, gilt and not gilt; showing the utility of gilding them externally, with some good reasoning on the nature of heat.

26. He was latterly engaged in composing a work on the Nature and Effects of Order, which he never completed, although no person was better qualified to write on the subject.

Count Rumford certainly possessed considerable facility of invention, and there was a very laudable spirit of originality in his views and modes of reasoning, although he had never leisure to acquire profound learning in any department of study. “In person he was above the middle size, with a dignified and pleasing expression of countenance, and a mildness in his manner and his tone of voice. He was ambitious of fame and distinction, and had too great a propensity to dictate,” without sufficiently regarding the opinions of others who were of equal authority with him self. His mode of life was abstemious, and his health was even supposed to have suffered from too great abstinence, though his regimen was much more the result of medical opinions respecting his health, than of his own peculiar taste for temperance.^[1. Pictet, Bibliothèque Britannique. Baldwin’s Literary Journal. Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lxxxiv. Aikin’s General Biography, vol. x. Chalmers’s Biographical Dictionary, vol. xxix. ] (l. l.)