109. Rumford, Benjamin Thompson, Count.
Vol. I ESSAYS, / POLITICAL, ECONOMICAL, / AND / PHILOSOPHICAL.
/ BY BENJAMIN Count of RUMFORD, / KNIGHT
OF THE ORDERS OF THE WHITE EAGLE, AND ST. STANISLAUS;
/ Chamberlain, Privy Counsellor of State, and Lieutenant-General
in the Service / of his Most Serene Highness the Elector
Palatine, Reigning Duke / of Bavaria; Colonel of his Regiment of
Artillery, and Commander in / Chief of the General Staff of his Army;
F. R. S. Acad. R. / Hiber. Berol. Elec. Boicoe. Palat. et Amer. Soc. /
The First American, / From the Third London, Edition. /
VOL. I. /
BOSTON: / Printed by
Manning & Loring, / For DAVID WEST.
Sold at his Book-store, No. 56, /
Cornhill; by
Ebenezer S. Thomas,
Charleston, S. Carolina; / and by
Solomon Cotton & Co. Baltimore. /
March, 1798.
8vo. Engraved portrait ([ii]); title page ([iii]); dedication ([v-vi); table
of contents ([vii]-xxiii); text, with 6 woodcut plates inserted between pp.
376-87 ([1]-464).
Vol. II. ESSAYS / . . . / VOL. II. / . . . / AUGUST, 1799.
8vo. Title page (1 leaf); note (1 leaf); table of contents (7 leaves); text,
with 11 engraved plates inserted, of which 1 is folding ([1]-496).
Vol. III. ESSAYS / . . . / A NEW EDITION. / Vol. III. / Boston: /
Printed for WEST AND GREENLEAF, / No. 56, CORNHILL. /
1804.
8vo. Title page (1 leaf); note ([i]-iv); partial table of contents ([v]-vii);
remainder of contents (3 leaves); text, with 8 engraved plates inserted,
of which 1 is folding, and with many woodcut figures in the text and 5
woodcut plates inserted ([1]-498).
Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814) was born in Woburn, Massachusetts.
He was educated in Woburn, Byfield, and Medford and showed an early
aptitude for drafting and mathematics. Although he was apprenticed to
an importer, he continued his scientific studies with the Rev. Thomas
Banerd of Salem. A Loyalist, he went over to England in 1776. He was
knighted there in 1784 and given the title of Count of the Holy Roman
Empire in 1791 by the Elector of Bavaria. He chose the name of Rumford,
which was the old name of Concord, New Hampshire, to accompany
this honor. He later married Mme. Lavoisier, the widow of the
physicist, but they were soon separated. He remained, however, in Paris
until his death.
Rumford's principal work was in the fields of food, thermodynamics,
the absorption of moisture, and gunpowder. He was a member of the
academies of Berlin, Munich, and Mannheim; he helped found the Royal
Institution in London; he was a foreign honorary member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences; and he was offered the post of superintendent
of West Point. When his will was read, it was found that he
had left a professorship to Harvard and $5,000 for a medal to the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences.
His Essays were first published in 1796 and had an edition as late as
1880 as well as a reprint in 1969. The edition of 1798-1804 was the first
American one.
Jefferson owned the first two volumes, later sold to Congress, and
some of the chapters had a notable influence on him as a practicing architect;
e.g., "Essay IV. Of Chimney Fire-Places, with Proposals for
Improving them to save Fuel; to render Dwelling-houses more Comfortable
and Salubrious, and effectually to prevent Chimnies from
Smoking" (I, [301]-87), first published in the Bibliothèque Britannique
in Geneva in 1796 and again in the same year in Vol. I of the London edition
of Rumford's Essays, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, and
"Essay I. Of the Management of Fire, and the Economy of
Fuel" (II, [1]-196). From these essays Jefferson derived his peculiar
but efficient forms for fireplaces so evident at Monticello (see Plates
CXVI and CXVII).
In 1799 Wilson Cary Nicholas asked Jefferson for the dimensions
of the Rumford fireplaces. Jefferson replied on May 2 saying he had
used them "with great satisfaction," although he had changed Rumford's
proportions of the back opening from one-third the front to one-half,
which would allow him to burn wood rather than coal. There is also an
undated memorandum on "Count Rumford fireplaces" (N-146b) in
which Jefferson specifies the proportions of the fireplaces in the two
"square rooms" of the first floor of Monticello, added after 1796.
All three volumes of the American edition were ordered by Jefferson
for the University in the section on "Technical Arts" of the want list,
but there is no evidence that they had been received by 1828. The library
has acquired a set of the books in the twentieth century.
U. Va.
*Q113.R92.1798
M
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