destroyed much of the raw material upon which they had been put to work. By degrees, however, their skill increased and in time their new life became an attractive one.

This experiment, explained by Count Rumford in his pub. lished works, in all its details proved a splendid success. Cloth and clothing were manufactured for the Bavarian army and for general disposition in the market. The wretched vermin which had invested, for generations, all parts of the Palatinate-a national disgrace and a hopeless nuisance-were by his firm hand ultimately raised to self-support and converted to skillful operatives; to self-respecting and respected citizens.

How, most economically, to feed these great numbers and how best to warm and light the apartments they occupied, became at once questions of great importance and led him into fields of science at that time but little explored.

The results of the investigations thus prompted, have secured to Thompson much of his highest fame. Very truly did Cuvier say of him in his able Éloge before the French Institute, "C'est en travaillant pour les pauvres qu'il a fait ses plus belle découvertes," he made his finest discoveries while working for the poor.

One of the earliest subjects to engage his attention in connection with these enterprises was the economizing of the heat used in warming and cooking. For a solution of the problem presented he applied himself to a thorough investigation of the principles of combustion, and to repeated experiments with a view of devising improved forms of fire-places and furnaces. The result of these efforts was a reduction of the requisite amount of fuel to about one quarter of what it had previously been.

While seeking the most economical method of applying heat to water, he made the very important discovery that the temperature of a given volume is not raised by a transmission of heat from one particle of the water to another, but rather, by the expansion and rise to the top of the particles first heated at the bottom. He seems to have been the first to discern the practicability and economy of warming by steam.

Investigations and experiments, in another direction, re

vealed the fact that articles of clothing are warm in proportion as they retain in the interstices of their substances the air warmed by the bodies upon which they are worn; and the further fact that this law holds good as well in the water as in the air.

Few then supposed that the taste, as it is called, which guides a skilful modiste, in combining the various colors of a lady's dress and its accessories, elegant and to uneducated eyes intricate exceedingly ;-that this taste is an embodiment of unvarying natural laws, and that the skilled artiste is a philosopher as well as milliner. Yet Thompson found by patient investigation that the harmonies of colors were as fixed as gravitation that discordant hues can no more fellowship each other than fair faced virtue and hideous sin.

Such are a few of the scientific subjects which, in all their multifarious details, engaged his attention while in the Elector's service.

But other labors of a different character from time to time employed him. To but two only of these can we allude. The first was his design and construction of their public park, called by the citizens of Munich the English Garden. Thompson, possessed as he was of a keen relish for natural beauty, had a decided taste for landscape gardening, particularly for that of the natural style, in distinction from the geometric, then most in vogue upon the continent.

On the borders of the city, as it happened, there was a large tract of waste ground, some seven and a half miles in circuit, which had ever lain unoccupied and useless His keen eye detected, at a glance, its great capacities, and he proposed to the Elector its conversion to a park. This proposition received the royal assent, and he was commissioned to proceed at once to its improvement.

Soon the rough places were made smooth; paths and avenues were constructed; winding here in sunlight through verdant lanes, there in shade through stately forests, and passing from time to time the branching streams of the Iser, on bridges as graceful as the swans that sailed beneath them. Exquisite flowers and rare shrubs were planted, and ornamental structures for refreshment and observation were reared at

points where convenience or beauty of prospect suggested their location.

Thus rescued and embellished, this once waste tract became the most beautiful spot in all the environs of Munich-the daily resort of rich and poor alike, the delight and pride of every one.

The second important act which also called forth, in large measure, the gratitude of the citizens of Munich, was his protection of their city from the ravages of the Austrian and French armies in 1796.

When, just after their defeat at Friedberg, the Austrians were retreating before the victorious troops of Moreau, they attempted to pass through Munich, but found its gates shut against them. Exasperated at this they occupied a position commanding the town and threatened to fire upon it. The French, in the meanwhile, were advancing in pursuit upon the other side, and likewise asked an entrance. The entrance of either was a calamity to be averted, if possible, at any cost.

Environed thus, the situation of Munich was a critical one. Consternation seized upon all its people, and the Elector, fearing for his personal security, withdrew to a place of safety; first, however, appointing a council of regency with Thompson at its head.

By virtue of this power Thompson assumed command of the Bavarian troops, and, by exercise of a firmness that excited the admiration of both contending armies, exacted their respect for the neutrality of Bavaria and the security of its capital.

Such services, rendered to a people not his own, were fully appreciated by the Elector and his subjects.

The latter named him "The friend of mankind." The former repeatedly advanced him to high positions and loaded him with honors. He was made Chamberlain, Privy Counsellor of State, Lieut.-General, Colonel of Artillery, Commanderin Chief of the General Staff of the Army of Bavaria, Knight of the Orders of the White Eagle and Saint Stanislaus, and Count of the Holy Roman Empire, to which, at his request, was added the titular distinction of Ruinford, in memory of the early name of the little town in New Hampshire where he found the wife of his youth and commenced life's career.

be as highly

Rarely had it fallen to the lot of a foreigner to honored, by a people not his own, as was he. And to-day, now that two generations and more have passed, his name is still cherished by the Bavarian people, and from its pedestal in the Maximillien Strasse, his statue of bronze looks down upon the crowds that throng that magnificent highway, suggesting, at once, his devotion to their beloved land and their lasting gratitude.

The Elector, Charles Theodore, died in 1799, and was succeeded by his nephew Prince Maximillien de Deux Ponts, who adopted a policy unlike that of his predecessor, and surrounded himself with counsellors in sympathy therewith.

Under these circumstances Count Rumford felt free to remain in Bavaria, or go elsewhere, as his inclinations might dictate. His scientific discoveries, although made in the furtherance of Bavarian interests, were of general importance, and had attracted a wide attention. These he had detailed with great exactness, in a series of published essays, throughout the whole warp and woof of which was vividly apparent the great truth that science is useful not in itself alone, but in its application to the various economies of common life. This truth commending itself to a few intelligent and public spirited men in England, led them to resolve upon the establishment of an institution for the teaching of science in its practical appliIcation to the domestic and mechanic arts. To Rumford, as to the fittest man of that time, was intrusted its formation.

Thus was established, in the opening year of the present century, the Royal Institution of London. Its labors have been manifold and their value incalculable. To him attaches the high honor of having been its founder.

When Count Rumford left this country in 1776, his wife and infant daughter remained behind him. The former never saw him afterwards. The latter, having been educated in the best schools of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, rejoined her father in Europe, in 1796.

She was received with great kindness at Munich, by the Elector and Electress. The former was, at that time, seventyone years old, while the latter, an Italian lady of rare beauty, was but seventeen; a fact which led the Court gossips to

remark that they were both of the same age, the figures having by some means got reversed.

But a young queen makes a joyous Court, and to its rounds of gayety the young American girl was introduced by her father and chaperoned by the Countess of Nogarola. How she got on in this new and dazzling sphere we have not time to relate here, and can only remark, in passing, that the Bavarian Sovereign confirmed to her, at her father's decease, his rank and title, together with one half of his yearly pension.

Count Rumford's wife died upon her estate in Concord, in 1792. Some years afterwards, he made the acquaintance of a distinguished Parisian lady, with whom he subsequently came into most intimate relations. She was the widow of Lavoisier, the eminent French chemist, who had been condemned to the guillotine during the awful days of the Terror, and had met death manfully, asking only a brief reprieve that he might finish, before his death, some important experiments then in progress.

Madame Lavoisier, although no longer young, still retained much of her former beauty. She possessed high culture, captivating manners, a good heart, and was very rich. She impressed deeply the heart of the lonely scientist, and for four years an active courtship of varying phases was maintained, and followed, on the 24th of October, 1805, by the marriage of the parties.

One consequence of this event was the removal of the Count to Paris, where he lived with Madame de Rumford, in an elegant mansion, situated in the heart of the city and surrounded by ample grounds inclosed by high walls.

Letters of the Count to his daughter, the Countess Sarah, reveal to us the character of his new life and its surroundings. We have time, however, to quote from them but a few sentences. In one, bearing date some two months after his marriage, he remarks:

"Our style of living is really magnificent. Madame is exceedingly fond of company, and makes a splendid figure in it herself; but she seldom goes out, keeping open doors, that is to say to all the great and worthy; such as the philosophers, members of the Institute, ladies of celebrity, etc."

"On Mondays we have eight or ten of the most noted of our associates at dinner. (Then we live on bits the rest of the week.) Thursdays are devoted to