THE COMPLETE WORKS OF COUNT RUMFORD. PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF VOL. IV. BOSTON. 1875. PREFACE. IN N 1796 Count Rumford gave to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences five thousand dollars three per cent stock in the funds of the United States, "to the end that the interest of the same may be . . . applied, and given once every second year as a premium to the author of the most important discovery or useful improvement which shall be made and published by printing, or in any way made known to the public, in any part of the continent of America, or in any of the American islands, during the preceding two years, on Heat or on Light." . . . For a long period of time succeeding this gift, no discovery or useful improvement in Heat or Light, which at once satisfied the terms of the trust, and was deemed by the Fellows worthy of the premium, was brought to the notice of the Academy; and in 1831 the Rumford Fund had already accumulated to twenty-three thousand dollars. In this year the Academy brought a Bill in Equity before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, "praying relief in the matter of the Rumford Fund;" and thereupon a decree was made, which, while it affirmed the object of the gift and insured the execution of the trust by qualifying some of the limitations by which the award of the Rumford premium was originally restricted, also authorized the Academy "to appropriate from time to time, as the same can advantageously be done, the residue of the income of said fund hereafter to be received, and not so as aforesaid awarded in premiums, to the purchase of such books and papers and philosophical apparatus (to be the property of said Academy), and in making such publications or procuring such lectures or |