Benjamin Thompson (later Count Rumford) aimed by his inventions and scientific research to increase the degree of comfort in daily life. His goals were practical and his contributions to our knowledge of the nature of heat proved extremely valuable. Between 1870 and 1875, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston published all of Rumford's papers that the Academy committee was able to find. The Academy edition, however, has long been out of print and practically unavailable. Here Sanborn Brown has rearranged the papers according to subject matter. Volume I contains Rumford's papers on the nature of heat; the second covers its practical applications. This third volume contains his papers on devices and techniques, including "Use of Steam for Transporting Heat"; "Means of Heating the Hall of the (French) Institute"; "New Boiler for Saving Fuel"; "Steam Heat for Making Soap"; "Fires in Closed Fire-Places"; "Kitchen Fire-Places"; "Salubrity of Warm Rooms"; "Salubrity of Warm Bathing"; "The Strength of Silk"; "Quantities of Absorbed Moisture"; "Advantage of Wheels with Broad Felloes"; and "Proposals for Building a Frigate."

Like his countryman and contemporary Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Thompson (later Count Rumford) aimed by his inventions and scientific research to increase the degree of comfort in daily life. During the fourteen years spent in Munich, he made important reforms in the city's public service and social welfare institutions; he also introduced improvements in the hospitals and workhouses in Ireland, England, and Italy. Rumford's contributions to our knowledge of the nature of heat were as valuable as Franklin's to our knowledge of electricity. Volume I of this edition of Rumford's Works contained his papers on the nature of heat. This second volume presents Rumford's work on the practical applications of heat. Of particular interest are his papers on the propagation of heat in liquids, chimney fire-places, supplementary observations on chimney fire-places, and the management of fire and the economy of fuel. Subsequent volumes contain papers on devices and techniques, light and armament, and public institutions.

An American of wide-ranging interests and overflowing energy, Benjamin Thompson applied his scientific and technical knowledge to the improvement of public service and welfare institutions in Bavaria (a service for which he was made Count Rumford), Ireland, England, and Italy. In the process, he made important discoveries in physics. In this new edition of Rumford's Works, Sanborn Brown has arranged his writings according to subject matter: this first volume contains his papers on the nature of heat, and includes one paper which has never before been published in English. The volume begins with Rumford's paper on the production of heat by friction, and continues with descriptions of the experiments by which he showed that heat has no weight, and his essays on the propagation of heat in solids and fluids. Subsequent volumes contain papers on practical applications of heat, devices and techniques (including studies of fireplaces and chimneys), armament, light and color, and on such public establishments and organizations as poorhouses, the army of Bavaria, and the Royal Institution in London.

The Royal Institution of Great Britain is renowned the world over, first, because it is a premier arena for the advancement of new scientific and technological knowledge; and second because it highlights the advance of knowledge of all kinds. It bridges the sciences and the humanities, and as much publicity is given to advances in the arts, archaeology, architecture, drama and literature as to the pure and applied sciences. More famous scientists have lived and worked in the Royal Institution than in any other laboratory in the world. A roll-call includes Rumford, Davy, Faraday, Tyndall, Dewar, Rayleigh, W. H. Bragg, W. L. Bragg and George Porter. Not is it only the home of continuous electricity, it is also the birthplace of many aspects of molecular biology and viruses and enzymology. Some fifteen scientists who have won the Nobel Prize have, at one time or another, worked or lectured at the RI. And eminent individuals, like Howard Carter and Coleridge, have lectured there. Albemarle Street - Portraits, Personalities and Presentations at The Royal institution is a lively and compelling personal selection of the remarkable personalities and achievements of some of the extraordinary scientists and individuals who, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, worked or lectured at 21 Albemarle Street in Mayfair, central London. John Meurig Thomas offers a unique and valuable insight into the history of this prestigious address, having himself lived and worked at the Royal Institution for some twenty years.