[Rarebooks] fa: COUNT RUMFORD - ESSAYS POLITICAL, ECONOMICAL & PHILOSOPHICAL 1797 -2 vols/Plates

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other antiquarian scientific works, auction ending Sunday, September 22. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/kzjk5x6

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

[Sir Benjamin Thompson,] Count Rumford: Essays, Political, Economical, and Philosophical. London: Printed for T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1797-98. Two volumes, 8vo, bound in full period calf (vol. II in mottled calf), tooled in gilt, modern leather title labels; [26], 464 pp.; [8], 196, [4], 197-312, [4], 311-386, [2], 387-496 pp. Stated third edition of vol. I, presumed first edition of vol. II (edition not stated). With the half-title pages; engraved vignette plus eighteen plates, 1 folding.
Light wear and bumping to the boards, rubbing to the spines, exterior hinges professionally repaired; some mild offsetting to and from the plates, occasional light scattered foxing to the leaves, a little dust-soiling to the top edge of the text blocks; otherwise quite clean and fresh, firmly bound. A handsome set of these scientific essays by the American-born physicist and inventor.

The nine wide-ranging essays consist of: I. An account of an Establishment for the Poor at Munich; II. On the Fundamental Principles on which General Establishments for the Relief of the Poor may be formed in all Countries; III. Of Food and Particularly of Feeding the Poor; IV. Of Chimney Fire-places, with proposals for improving them to save Fuel; to render Dwelling-houses more Comfortable and Salubrious, and effectually to prevent Chimnies from Smoking; V. A Short Account of several Public Institutions lately formed in Bavaria; VI. Of the Management of Fire, and the Economy of Fuel; VII. Of the Propagation of Heat in Fluids. VIII. Of the Propagation of Heat in Various Substances; being an Account of a Number of New Experiments made with a View to the Investigation of the Causes of the Warmth of Natural and Artificial Clothing; IX. An Inquiry concerning the Source of the Heat which is Excited by Friction.

Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814), born in Rumford (later, Woburn) Massachusetts, was a Loyalist who emigrated to England after the Revolutionary War. There, largely due to his experiments with gunpowder and thermodynamics, he was knighted and made a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1785 he transplanted to Bavaria at the behest of the reigning Prince-Elector Palatine and was named Commander in Chief of the General Staff of the Army. During his eleven years in Bavaria, he reorganized the military, designed and established workhouses for the poor, invented Rumford Soup (an early attempt at cost-efficient nutrition for convicts and the poor), the double boiler and the percolating coffee pot, explored methods of cooking, heating, and lighting, and created the Englischer Garten in Munich. For his efforts he was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire in 1791. He is probably best remembered today for his fuel-efficient Rumford Chimney and his experiments with friction that disproved the caloric theory of heat, both of which achievements are described in these volumes.