VIII. Facts serving to show the comparative forwardness of the spring season in different parts of the United States. By Jacob Bigelow, M. D. Rumford Professor in Harvard IX. Some observations on the Sea-Serpent. By William D. Peck, A. M. F. A. A. Professor of Natural History in Har- X. An account of the violent and destructive Storm of the 23d of September 1815. By John Farrar, Professor of Math. and Nat. Phil. in Harvard University. XI. An account of a singular electrical phenomenon, observed during a snow storm accompanied with thunder. By John XII. Observationes Carpologica in Kamelliam et Theam. a W. D. Peck, A. M. A. A. Soc. Hist. et Agric. Mass. Socio; XIII. Remarks on Doctor Stewart's formula, for computing the motion of the Moon's Apsides, as given in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Brittanica. By Nathaniel Bow- XIV. Description of several Halos and Parhelia, observed at Brunswick, Maine. By Parker Cleaveland, Professor of Math. and Nat. Phil. in Bowdoin College. XV. Outlines of the Mineraloy and Geology of Boston and its ...III. Occultation of Spica by the Moon, observed at Sulem XIX. On a mistake which exists in the calculation of Mr. Poisson relative to the distribution of the electrical matter upon the surfaces of two globes: in vol. 12 of the "Mémoires de la classe des sciences mathématiques et physiques de l'Institut Impérial de France." By Nathaniel Bowditch, LL. D. XX. On the Orbit of the Comet of 1819. By Alexander M. Fisher, A. M. Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philos- ophy in Yale College. Communicated in a letter to the Hon. XXI. Elements of the Comet of 1819. By Nathaniel Bow- XXII. On the adoption of a uniform Orthography for the Indian Languages of North America. By John Pickering, A. A. S. 319 XXIII. Observations made with Fahrenheit's thermometer, at Salem, Mass. from the year 1793 to the year 1818, both inclu- sive, being the last 26 years of a period of 33 years' observa- tions, the first series of seven years of which was published in the Memoirs of the American Academy, in the year 1793. By Edward Augustus Holyoke, M. D. President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Computed by Elisha Clap, F. A. A. and communicated by Levi Hedge, F. A. A. Professor of Logick and Metaphysicks in Harvard XXIV. Results of Meteorological Observations, made at Williams- XXV. On the extraordinary darkness that was observed in some paris of the United States and Canada, in the month of Nov. 1819. By Frederick Hall, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Middlebury College, Vermont. XXVI. On an Inscription from the Columbarium of the Freedmen and Slaves of Livia Augusta. By Edward Everett, Eliot Professor of Greek Literature in Harvard University. XXVII. An account of some Greek Manuscripts, procured at Constantinople in 1819, and now belonging to the Library of MEMOIRS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. Some account of the life and writings of Benjamin Count Rumford. BY JACOB BIGELOW, M. D. RUMFORD PROFESSOR IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. THE labours of mankind are generally efficient in proportion as they are concentrated, or devoted to a single object. In the present advanced state of philosophy and literature, excellence in any scientific career is usually attained at the price of a long and undivided attention to its particular pursuit. And if in certain instances individuals arrive at distinction in more than one walk of science, as well as of life, it may justly be ascribed to the greatness and versatility of their talents, or to the ardour, perseverance and resolution of their conduct. In the subject of this memoir a singular example is found of success, attending natural talents and force of character, exerted in various situations of life, and under circumstances the most dissimilar. We can only suppose it to be from uncommon and commanding powers, aided by unusual activity; that an individual of obscure origin should rise above the disadvantages of his situation; should become possessed of high literary and political honors; and should maintain an uniform eminence in what ever sphere his exertions were required; whether in the closet or the laboratory, the court or the field. The birth place of Benjamin Thompson, afterwards Count Rumford, was the town of Woburn in Massachusetts, a few miles from Boston. His parentage was from the common class of yeomanry, and the labours of agriculture still give employment to his surviving connexions in that place. His father dying during his infancy, he was put under the guardianship of a relation, from whom he received the ordinary advantages of a country school. His early taste is said by those who knew him during his boyhood, to have displayed itself in a fondness for mechanical and philosophical amusements. He was less captivated by the usual sports of boys, than he was by the construction of little pieces of mechanism, by rude attempts at drawing and painting, and the imitation of various articles of mechanics' work. In these occupations he engaged with great earnestness and perseverance, and was disturbed and impatient at any interruption of the pursuit. His propensity for employments of this kind was so strong, that it seems in a manner to have incapacitated him for more regular duties, and to have defeated the attempts which were made to initiate him in business. At the age of thirteen, as it appears from a memorandum in his own hand writing, he was put apprentice in a merchant's store in Salem. Afterwards he spent a few months with a physician in Woburn, and at the age of sixteen again entered a merchant's counting-house in Boston. In all these situations he discovered an uniform disinclination for business, and a propensity to more eccentric pursuits. He privately amused himself in experiments with gunpowder and fire works, and laboured to |