working plan for an Industrial Institution, which they unanimously approved. The plan was presented, and circulated widely among prominent men in London, soliciting suggestions and cooperation.

Fifty-eight most respectable names had been sent in before arrangements could be made for a meeting of the subscribers; and this hearty response induced some change in the plan in respect to the first choice of managers, and in regard to an application for a charter before any further organization.

Count Rumford, at this stage of the business, and before a meeting of the subscribers had been held, addressed to them a pamphlet containing all the matters that have been thus summarized. It was dated from Brompton Row, 4th March, 1799, and was intended to prepare them for the meeting soon to follow. He expressed his readiness to take any part that might be desired.

'The Proposals,' &c., evidently from the pen of the Count, are then set forth in the pamphlet, and contain a complete plan for the organization, administration, and support of the Institution, with minute specifications of its objects, when carried into details.

Those objects, first stated comprehensively, are 'the speedy and general diffusion of the knowledge of all new and useful improvements, in whatever quarter of the world they may originate; and teaching the application of scientific discoveries to the improvement of arts and manufactures in this country, and to the increase of domestic comfort and convenience.' Efforts were to be made to confine the Institution to its proper limits, to give it a solid foundation, and to make it an ornament to the capital and an honor to the nation. Spacious and airy rooms were to be provided for receiving and exhibiting such new mechanical inventions and improvements, especially such contrivances for increasing conveniences and comforts, for promoting domestic economy, improving public taste, and advancing useful industry, as should be thought worthy of notice.

Perfect and full-sized models of all such mechanical inventions and improvements as would serve these ends were to be provided and placed in a repository. The following are the specifications: Cottage fireplaces and kitchen utensils for cottagers; a farm-house kitchen, with its furnishings; a complete kitchen, with utensils, for the house of a gentleman of fortune; a laundry, including boilers, washing, ironing, and drying rooms, for a gentleman's house, or for a public hospital; the most approved German, Swedish, and Russian stoves for heating rooms and passages. In order that visitors might receive the utmost practical benefit from seeing these models, the peculiar merit in each of them should, as far as was possible, be

exhibited in action. Open chimney fireplaces, with ornamental and economical grates, and ornamental stoves, made to represent elegant chimney-pieces, for halls and for drawing and eating rooms, were to be exhibited, with fires in them. It was proposed, likewise, to exhibit working models, on a reduced scale, of that most curious and most useful machine, the steam engine;' also, of brewers' boilers, with improved fireplaces; of distillers' coppers, with improved condensers; of large boilers for the kitchens of hospitals; and of ships' coppers, with improved fireplaces. Models also were to illustrate and to suggest improvements in ventilating apparatus; in hot-houses, lime-kilns, and steam-boilers for preparing food for stall-fed cattle; in the planning of cottages, spinning-wheels, and looms 'adapted to the circumstances of the poor;' models of newly invented machines and implements of husbandry; models of bridges of various constructions; and, comprehensively, 'models of all such other machines and useful instruments as the managers of the Institution shall deem worthy of the public notice.'

The second great object of the Institution, namely, 'teaching the applications of science to the useful purposes of life,' was to be secured by fitting up a lecture-room for philosophical lectures and experiments with a complete laboratory and philosophical apparatus, and all necessary instruments for chemical and other experiments, This lecture-room is to be used for no other purposes but those of natural philosophy and philosophical chemistry, and it is to be made comfortable and salubrious for subscribers. The most eminent and distinguished expounders of science are to be exclusively engaged, and the managers are to be strictly responsible for their rigid restriction of their discourses to the subjects committed to them. If there is room, non-subscribers may be admitted for a small fee.

After the first printing and distribution of these 'Proposals,' and before the Institution had received its charter-title, a general meeting of the proprietors was held at the house of Sir Joseph Banks, in Soho Square, March 7, 1799, the host occupying the chair. It was then found that fifty-eight persons had made themselves proprietors by the contribution of fifty guineas each. The list contains many distinguished names of scientific men, gentlemen, members of Parliament and of the nobility, including one bishop.

It was then decided at once to choose the committee of managers, who should be instructed to apply to his Majesty for a charter for the Institution, to lay an outline of its plan before the Right Honorable Mr. Pitt and his Grace the Duke of Portland, to send it forth to the public, and to publish the proceedings in the newspapers.

We turn now to another contemporary publication which presents to us the organized completion of the establishment in the conception and initiation of which Count Rumford had exercised such ingenuity and practical wisdom, and in whose service he had been. so zealously engaged. It is a publication in quarto form, of ninetytwo pages, bearing the following title: The Prospectus, Charter, Ordinances, and By-Laws of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Together with Lists of the Proprietors and Subscribers; and an Appendix. London. Printed for the Royal Institution. 1800.' It bears a vignette of the corporate seal of the Institution, which is a flourishing and fruit-bearing tree sprouting out of a mural crown, the circle being surmounted by the Royal crown of Britain. The King appears as Patron, the officers of the Institution were appointed by him at its formation, the Earl of Winchelsea and Nottingham being President; the Earls of Morton and Egremont, and Sir Joseph Banks, Vice-Presidents; the Earls of Bessborough, Egremont, and of Morton, being respectively the first-named on each of the three classes of Managers, on the first of which, to serve for three years, is Count Rumford. The Duke of Bridgewater, Viscount Palmerston, and Earl Spencer, lead each of the three classes of Visitors. The whole list proves with what a power of patronage, as well as with what popularity and enthusiasm, the enterprise was initiated. Dr. Thomas Garnett, Prof. of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry, T. Bernard, Esq., Treas. Home and Foreign Secretary, Legal Council, a Solicitor, and a Clerk, complete the list.

The charter of the Institution passed the royal seals on the 13th of January, 1800. The twenty-fifth day of the coming March was appointed for organization under it. Count Rumford is named among the grantees, and its provisions conform substantially to its own well-wrought plan already described. The ordinances, by-laws, and regulations of the Institution, which are likewise for the most part adjusted to that plan, and provide for carrying it into details of efficiency and practical benefit, indicate the agency of the masterspirit of the whole enterprise. Precautions are taken to guard against the influences of jealousy and favoritism in its membership and administration, and to hold it strictly and generously to its prime purposes of benefiting the public by research, the diffusion of scientific knowledge, and the service of the more homely and economical interests of humanity. The managers are to furnish the laboratory, the workshop, and the repository of the establishment in the most complete manner, and to provide an able chemist as a teaching and demonstrating professor, and also to engage other

professors and lecturers in experimental and mechanical philosophy. No political subject is to be even mentioned, and no themes introduced which are disconnected with the objects of the Institution.

On the 10th of March, 1800, the Count was residing in the house of the Institution, and he was requested, as long as he did so, to superintend all the works, the servants, and the workmen. He continued in the house until July 6, 1801, when it was

Resolved, That Count Rumford be requested to continue his general superin tendence of the works going on at the house of the Institution, agreeably to the several resolutions of the managers in that respect, in the same manner as if he had continued to reside in the house.

Count Rumford reported, that, at the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, he had had a conversation with Dr. Young respecting his engagement as Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution and editor of the journals, together with a general superintendence of the house. And 'it appearing from his report that Dr. Young is a man of abilities equal to these undertakings, it was 'Resolved, That Count Rumford be authorized to engage Dr. Young in the aforesaid capacities, at a salary of £300 per annum.'

Dr. John Davy, in his memoirs of the life of his brother, Sir Humphry, gives a sketch of his connection with the Royal Institution as assistant lecturer on chemistry and director of the laboratory. While recognizing very fully the promising inauguration of the new Institution, and the signal services which have been performed through it, this biographer hardly does justice to the claims of Count Rumford as its master-spirit, or to his agency in bringing Sir Humphry upon the scene where he won his first eminent distinctions.

The laboratory of the Institution was constructed and equipped after plans drawn by the Count; and when his attention had been drawn to Davy's investigations on heat, he at once wrote to the young chemist, inviting him to London, and having become satisfied with his talents and eminent qualifications as a lecturer proposed for his consideration the management of the laboratory and the post of assistant professor. He then, February 16, 1801, writes:

In consequence of the conversations I have had with you respecting your en gaging in the service of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, I this day laid the matter before the Managers of the Institution, at their Meeting: (Present, Sir Joseph Banks, Earl of Morton, Count Rumford, and Richard Clark, Esq,) and I have the pleasure to acquaint you that the Proposal I made to them was approved, and the following Resolution unanimously taken by them:

Resolved, That Mr. Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution in the capacity of Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, Director of the Chemical Laboratory, and assistant Editor of the Journals of the Institution.

On the 16th of March following the Managers' minutes add: Count Rumford reported that Mr. Davy arrived at the Institution on Wednesday, the 11th of March, 1801, and took possession of his situation.

Under these auspices the Royal Institution of Great Britain entered on its career of beneficent action. Dr. Young gave his first lecture on the 20th of January, 1802, and in 1807 published in two volumes, quarto, his lectures and studies for the same under the title of A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts,' 1570 pages and 58 plates. He was followed in this line by Dr. John Dalton, who was succeeded in 1853 by Prof. John Tyndall, Prof. Davy gave his first course of lectures in 1802, of which a Syllabus was published in the same year. He gave his last lecture April 9, 1812, the day after he was knighted by the Prince Regent and the eve of his nuptials with Mrs. Apreece, a union which made him master of a large fortune. He was succeeded by Michael Faraday, who became Davy's assistant in 1815, and lectured before the Institution annually for a period of thirtyeight years, living on the premises for more than a half century.

In 1833, two chairs, one of chemistry and the other of physiology were founded by Mr. John Fuller; and in 1838, Mrs. Acton invested the sum of 1,000l. from the income of which the Royal Institution awards once in seven years 100 guineas to the author of the best essay on the benevolence of the Almighty as manifested by scientific discoveries.

The Royal Institution at the present time embraces the following objects: (1) To stimulate to scientific and literary researches; (2) to teach the principles of inductive and experimental science; (3) to show the application of these principles to the different arts of life; (4) to afford opportunities for study. It comprises:

1. Public Lectures, designed to supply what books or private instruction can rarely give, namely, experimental exhibitions, comprehensive designs or detailed descriptions of objects connected with science or art. They usually embrace a short course at Christmas, and at least six courses, before and after Easter, the season extending from the middle of January to the middle of June. The usual subjects of these courses are some of the branches of the science of induction, such as mechanics, chemistry, heat, light, electricity, astronomy, geology, botany, and physiology. There are also, on occasion, courses upon subjects of general interest, such as literature, the fine arts, and music.*

2. Weekly meetings of the members of the Institution. These meetings take place every Friday evening during the season. They were established in 1826, the members having each the privilege of introducing two of his friends by ticket. The object of these reunions is to bring into contact men of letters and savants, and to furnish the opportunity of communicating, by discourses in the amphitheater, either new views or new applications of known truths, or of demonstrating experimentally and of rendering familiar by description new re

* Of these courses we notice-Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy, by Rev. Sydney Smith, 1805-9 (published in 1850); Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man, 1868, by Sir John Lubbock; Architecture of the Human Body, by Prof. Humphrey; Chemistry of Vegetable Products, by Prof. Odling, 1870; Science of Language, by Max Muller, 1861; Italy in the Middle Ages, M. Lacaita, 1858; Courses of Lectures on Education, by Whewell, Faraday, Paget, and other eminent men, in 1853-4.