THOMPSON, Benjamin, Count Rumford (1753-1814)

Essais politiques, économiques et philosophiques

Geneva: chez G. J. Manget, An VIII, 1799.
2 volumes 8vo: A--2F (--2F8), 231 leaves, pp. 461 [1](last page blank); a6 A--2K8 (--2K8), 269 leaves, pp. xii 525 [1] (last page blank). Plates: 8 folding leaves of plates (bound at the end of volume 2). Leaf size and condition: 198 x 120mm. Binding: Contemporary mottled sheep, gilt spines with raised bands, red edges. One or two insignificant chips in leather but an attractive copy. Provenance and annotation: References:
First French edition. A translation with notes by Tanneguy de Courtivron of the first two volumes of Rumford's Essays (Essays 1-9), originally published in 1796 and 1797: the third volume in English did not appear until 1800. Four further volumes, numbered as volumes 3-6 (containing Essays 10-15), were published in Paris 1802-1806.
§ The first two volumes of Rumford's Essays include his most important scientific papers and contributions to a range of technical innovations including the 'Rumford fireplace'. Volume I contains Rumford's famous essay on his design for open fireplaces in which he introduced the smoke shelf, the throat and the damper, all characteristic of the modern chimney. This design threw far more heat into the room and made enormous savings in fuel, bringing about an immediate revolution in the construction of chimneys in new houses and the widespread 'Rumfordisation' of existing fireplaces. Volume II is devoted to papers on heat and contains Rumford's most important paper, 'An inquiry concerning the source of heat' in which he demonstrated that heat is a form of motion, and not, as was thought by his contemporaries, a fluid. He was led to this conclusion by experiments on boring cannon at the arsenal at Munich in which he found that friction provided an inexhaustible supply of heat, whereas under the old theory, the metal should contain a finite amount of caloric. He even tried to calculate how much heat was produced and was the first to set a figure on what we now call the mechanical equivalent of heat, though half a century was to pass before Joule reported the correct value. In another classic paper in this volume,'On the propagation of heat in fluids' Rumford describes his experiments on convection and his discovery of ocean circulation by means of convection currents. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, an American born scientist, was largely responsible for the foundation of the Royal Institution in London and the founder of the Royal Society's Rumford Medal. Towards the end of his colourful life he married, disastrously, Lavoisier's widow.

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