As one of Count Rumford’s reasons for preferring a general system for
the administration of charity was the superior economy which it
admitted, especially in the articles of food and fuel, it is not to be
wondered at that he turned his attention to a consideration of the
subject of food and fuel itself. In doing so, he opened up a new field
for the exercise of his practical genius. What is the cheapest way of
feeding large bodies of men? and what is the most economical way of
applying heat for the purposes of warmth, of cooking, and of
manufactures? These are questions upon which Count Rumford occupied
himself more zealously and more successfully than any one had done
before him, or, probably, than any one has done since his time. With
the former question he was engaged while yet resident in Bavaria――one
of his subsidiary schemes for the benefit of the poor there, and in
other large towns, being the establishment of public kitchens and
dining-rooms, where the poor, or indeed the laboring classes
generally, might be supplied with better food at a cheaper rate than
in their own houses. As the subject of cookery――of the improvements
which are possible in the mode of preparing food for the use of man,
whether with respect to economy, or to the gratification of the
palate, or to both――is one to which scientific men have not yet
applied themselves with sufficient zeal, we will note down such of
Rumford’s conclusions on it as do not appear to be antiquated. The
importance which Count Rumford himself attached to the subject will
appear from his extraordinary saying, that ‘the number of inhabitants
who may be supported in any country upon its internal produce, depends
almost as much upon the state of its _art of cookery_ as upon that of
its _agriculture_.’
With regard to the materials of food, it needs only to be mentioned
that Rumford, besides recommending in Bavaria a larger use of
vegetables generally, advocated in a special manner the introduction
of the potato, and of Indian corn――the former by cultivation, the
latter by importation. In recommending Indian corn, he says, ‘The
common people in the northern parts of Italy live almost entirely upon
it, and throughout the whole continent of America it makes a principal
article of food. In Italy it is called _polenta_; and it is there
prepared in a variety of ways, and forms the basis of a number of very
nourishing dishes. The most common way of using it in that country is
to grind it into meal, and, with water, to make it into a thick kind
of pudding, like what in England is called hasty-pudding, which is
eaten with various kinds of sauce, and sometimes without sauce.’ In
America, besides being used for puddings, it forms an ingredient of
bread. In testimony to its pleasantness and wholesomeness as an
article of food, he mentions the circumstance of the universal
fondness of the Americans for it; and that the negroes, in countries
where both rice and Indian corn are grown, invariably prefer it to
rice, alleging that ‘rice turns to water in their bellies,’ but
‘Indian corn stays with them, and makes them strong to work.’
As to the best mode of preparing food for the purposes of economy,
Rumford’s grand recipe was――_soup_. ‘At the time when Rumford entered
the service of the elector,’ says his biographer, Dr. Renwick, ‘the
pay of the private soldier was no more than about three cents a day;
under his administration it was raised to about four cents. Out of
this he was compelled to purchase every article of food, except bread,
of which a ration of little more than two pounds was issued to him.
When we compare this scanty allowance with the rations of our own army
and navy, we should fancy that the condition of the Bavarian soldiers
must have been miserable in the extreme; but so far from this being
the case, they are described as ‘the finest, stoutest, and strongest
men in the world, whose countenances show the most evident marks of
health and perfect contentment.’ Such was the skill in cookery
possessed by the Bavarian soldier, that he was enabled to subsist on
two-thirds of his scanty pay, and, in addition, to save five-sixths of
his ration of bread, which he sold.’ By inquiries and experiments,
Rumford became convinced that the cause of the mystery lay in the
fact, that the Bavarian soldier used his food almost universally in
the form of soup. ‘What surprised me not a little,’ he says, ‘was the
discovery of the very small quantiy of _solid food_ which, when
properly prepared, will suffice to satisfy hunger, and support life
and health; and the very trifling expense at which the stoutest and
most laborious man may in any country be fed. After an experience of
nearly five years in feeding the poor at Munich, it was found that the
cheapest, most savory, and most nourishing food that could be prepared
was a soup composed of pearl barley, pease, potatoes, cuttings of fine
wheaten bread, vinegar, salt, and water, in certain proportions. I
constantly found that the richness or quality of a soup depended more
upon a proper choice of the ingredients, and a proper management of
the fire, than upon the quantity of solid nutritious matter
employed――much more upon the art and skill of the cook, than upon the
amount of the sums laid out in the market. I found also that the
nutritiousness of a soup, or its power of satisfying hunger, and
affording nourishment, seemed always to be in proportion to its
apparent richness or palatableness.’
Struck with these remarkable results, Rumford endeavoring to explain
them, by supposing that the _water_ used in converting solid
nutritious matter into soup became of itself nutritious, serving not
merely as the vehicle for food, but really constituting a part of the
food itself. This supposition of Rumford is now ascertained to be a
mistake. ‘Physiologists, however,’ says Dr. Renwick, ‘have reached the
true explanation. The quantity of matter required to supply the waste
of the body at all ages, and furnish the material for the growth of
the young, is small compared with the actual capacity of the digestive
organ, while the latter is not satiated, nor the appetite satisfied,
unless it receive a certain degree of distention. A quantity of warm
liquid, holding so much nutritious matter in solution as to render
digestion necessary, will fulfill the latter object as well as an
equal bulk of solid food; while the necessity of expelling the excess
above the actual wants of the system many in the latter case be
productive of evil.’
With such a decided preference for the soup form of food as Count
Rumford had been led to entertain, it is not to be wondered at that
soup was an essential feature in all his schemes for the benefit of
the poor. Soup was the great article of food employed in his
experiments in Munich; and in his contemplated project of public
kitchens and dining-rooms for large towns, the necessary condition of
success was, that soup should be the staple diet. He even went into
the details of the composition of soup; and his essays contain
receipts for making various kinds of soup, with and without
butcher-meat. The following judicious observations of Rumford’s
American biographer seem to sum up both the merits and the demerits of
these experiments and speculations:――‘The only question which admits
of doubt is, how the description of food preferred by Rumford is
adapted to the circumstances of all countries. Now, to the greater
part of the Anglo-Saxon race, soup, if not an abomination, will never
be received as the staple of more than one daily meal; while tea and
coffee, whose use Rumford reprobates, with their accompaniment of
sugar, have become necessaries of life. In Paris, soup, which became
for a while the fashionable mode of administering charity, was well
adapted to the habits of the people; but in England and America it was
received with grumbling, or rejected by all who could in any other
mode obtain food. One reason no doubt was, that it was considered
sufficient to make the food nutritious, without attempting to make it
pleasing to the palate. This defeat is far from inherent; for the
soups of Rumford, whether containing none but vegetable matter, or a
mixture of animal substance, may be easily rendered as delicious as
the most costly preparations of the French kitchen.’
Besides the general schemes which we have mentioned, Count Rumford was
engaged, during his residence in Bavaria, in many minor plans of
social improvement; indeed, as we have already said, he acted the part
of surveyor-general of the abuses of the electorate. It was not in the
nature of things that he should be able to proceed in his various
innovations and reforms without provoking some jealousy and opposition
among the Bavarian nobles: the support and favor, however, of the
elector never failed him, and with the people at large he was
exceedingly popular. In the year 1794, finding his health greatly
impaired by his close attention to business, he obtained leave of
absence from the elector, and employed sixteen months in traveling
through various parts of the continent, especially Italy. During his
absence, two very gratifying testimonies of respect and gratitude were
borne to him by the Bavarians. The first was, the erection of a
monument to commemorate his public services. The other was still more
honorable to him: it was the resolution, already referred to, of the
inmates of the Military Workhouse, when they heard that he was
dangerously ill at Naples, to set apart an hour every evening to pray
for his recovery. In 1795 Rumford returned to Bavaria, but left it
almost immediately, to proceed on a visit to England. Here he was
received with all distinction, and his opinion and advice were asked
by all engaged in philanthropic schemes. To save himself the labor
thus entailed upon him, he resolved to publish an account of his
doings and experiments in Bavaria, and accordingly prepared for the
press the two volumes of essays which go by his name. The only subject
of general interest in these essays, apart from the purely scientific
disquisitions, which remains to be mentioned by us, is that of _fuel_.
In undertaking to reform chimneys and fireplaces, Count Rumford had
three objects in view――the saving of fuel, the prevention of smoke,
and the avoidance of the injury to health arising from drafts. The
extent of his services in this unpretending but most important
department will be better estimated if we consider the state of
fireplaces in most European countries fifty or sixty years ago. ‘The
most polished nations of antiquity,’ says Dr. Renwick, ‘had no other
means of providing for the issue of the smoke of their fires than by
leaving openings in the roof. They indeed appear, in some instances,
to have heated apartments by flues circulating beneath the floors,
which must have terminated in a vertical funnel, thus forming an
approximation to the chimney; but there appears to be no instance of
the arrangement of an open hearth and vertical flue until late in the
middle ages. Chimneys and fireplaces of the latter date are still to
be seen in the kitchens and halls of baronial mansions; but the
hearths were of great size, the arched openings wide and lofty,
insomuch that they could be entered by persons standing upright, and
admitted seats to be placed on each side of the fire. The latter,
indeed, were the only places where the warmth of the fire could be
enjoyed without exposure to the currents of cold air continually
rushing in to join the ascending column in the chimney. Even when an
increasing scarcity of fuel compelled less extravagant modes of
applying it to be sought, the arched opening remained of a large size,
the fireplace of a depth equal in extent to its front, and the walls
were carried back perpendicularly to the latter. In England, where
coal had come into almost universal use as a fuel, the grates in which
it was burnt were almost exact cubes, and were lined with cast-iron on
the sides and back. The evils of these fire-places may be recollected
by all whose age reaches fifty; and they are remembered with feelings
in which shuddering and scorching are strangely combined, but which
are almost unknown, and scarcely to be imagined, by the present
generation. Chimneys which did not smoke were the exception to the
general rule; and the exposure of the surface of the body to cold
currents generated the acute pains of rheumatism, while the frequent
alternations of an increased and checked perspiration caused colds, to
be followed, in regular course, by pulmonary complaints. In this state
of things Rumford undertook to remedy the manifold evils of the open
fireplace.’
Observing that the heat of a mass of blazing fuel in a grate consisted
of two parts――that which radiated into the room, and served the
purposes of warmth; and that which, by heating the column of air in
the chimney, caused it to ascend, Rumford saw that an enormous saving
could be effected by diminishing the size of the grate. Instead of a
cubical mass of fuel, such as was generally used, he proposed to
employ a grate of ordinarily broad front, but not deep backward, and
with the sides not perpendicular to the front, but inclining. The
effect of this was to limit the fire to the single function of warming
the room by radiation from its front, while the mass of coal which had
formerly been consumed without any benefit to the apartment was saved.
In order, however, to prevent the smoking of the chimneys which would
have arisen from this diminution of the burning mass, another change
was necessary, and this was the narrowing the throat of the chimney,
so as to allow no more air to pass through it than the precise
quantity required to maintain the combustion. ‘The immoderate size of
the throats of chimneys,’ says Rumford, ‘is the great fault of their
construction. It is this fault which ought always first to be attended
to in every attempt which is made to improve them; for however perfect
the construction of a fireplace may be in other respects, if the
opening left for the passage of the smoke is larger than is necessary
for that purpose, nothing can prevent the warm air of the room from
escaping through it; and whenever this happens, there is not only an
unnecessary loss of heat, but the warm air which leaves the room to go
up the chimney being replaced by cold air from without, drafts of cold
air cannot fail to be produced in the room, to the great annoyance of
those who inhabit it.’
Such is a general description of Count Rumford’s alterations in
fireplaces. The subject, however, was pursued by him to its minutest
details, and illustrated by numerous and specific plans for curing
smoky chimneys under all possible circumstances. He likewise invented
various forms of stoves and grates, intended to exhibit the model
perfection of an apparatus for heating rooms, or for cooking victuals.
So thorough and complete was his investigation of the subject, that
little remained afterwards to be added to his conclusions; and it may
be said, that any case of the continuance of a smoky chimney after the
publication of his essays, arose from a neglect or misapplication of
the principles there developed.
After some stay in Great Britain, he returned to Munich in 1796,
accompanied by his daughter, who had come over from America at his
request, her mother having died in 1792. What were Count Rumford’s
relations with America, during the long interval of his absence from
it, we have no means of ascertaining; as far as can be inferred,
however, he seems to have maintained little correspondence with his
former friends in the United States till after his wife’s death; and
one cannot help remarking the unpleasing circumstance, that while on
one side of the Atlantic the husband was enjoying an honorable
position, and filling a large space in the public eye, the wife and
daughter continued during the life of the former to reside on the
other.
Rumford, on his return to Munich, was occupied in very important
affairs. The advance of the French republican army under Moreau
obliged the elector to quit the capital, leaving a council of regency,
with Rumford at its head. Rumford succeeded in the arduous task of
freeing Bavaria from invasion, and his conduct on this occasion
increased his reputation with the elector and with the people. Among
other tokens of the elector’s gratitude for his services, he was
permitted to settle one-half of the pension which he enjoyed on his
daughter, to be paid during her lifetime. In 1798 the elector, partly
with a view to gratify him with an honor which he knew he desired, and
partly to afford him another opportunity of relaxation for the
improvement of his health, appointed him ambassador at the court of
Great Britain. On arriving in London, however, Rumford found, that in
consequence of the English legal fiction, by which a born subject of
the country is declared incapable of ever alienating his allegiance,
he could not be received as the Bavarian ambassador. Mortified as he
must have been by this circumstance, and still more deeply grieved by
the loss of his friend and patron, the Elector Charles Theodore, who
died in 1799, Rumford contemplated returning to spend the remainder of
his life in the land of his birth. In compliance with a formal
invitation which he received from the United States government, he was
making preparations for his return, and had written to a friend to
secure a cottage in the vicinity of Boston, as a ‘quiet little
retreat,’ when he was led to change his design, and remain in London,
in the society of which he occupied a conspicuous place. During
several years, a great part of the Count Rumford’s time was devoted to
the interests of the Royal Institution, of which he may be considered
the founder. The objects of this institution, now one of the
recognized scientific establishments of the world, and one which can
boast of having given employment to such men as Young, Davy, Brande,
and Faraday, were ‘to diffuse the knowledge and facilitate the general
introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, and to
teach, by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the
application of science to the useful purposes of life.’ Such an
institution was precisely the one which Rumford was qualified to
superintend; and in its early history, the influence of his peculiar
habits of thought is discernable in the choice of subjects for
investigation by the members. Subsequently, the institution assumed
the high scientific character which it yet holds.
In 1802, Count Rumford left England, and spent some time in travel.
Revisiting Munich, he found the workhouse which he had planned, and
which had been instrumental in producing so much good, abolished, and
the new elector, Maximilian, friendly indeed but indisposed to follow
the footsteps of his predecessor. Accordingly, after assisting in
modeling a Bavarian academy of sciences, he took farewell of his
adopted country, and went to reside in Paris, retaining an income of
about £1200 from the Bavarian court. At the same time his daughter
returned to America, her father having abandoned his intention of
returning along with her. In Paris, Count Rumford appears at first to
have gained the good-will and esteem which had attended him so
remarkably during his previous life; and not long after he began his
residence there, he contracted a second marriage with the widow of the
celebrated Lavoisier, put to death during the French Revolution. From
1804 to 1814 he resided with his wife at Auteuil, a villa at a short
distance from Paris, the property of Madame Lavoisier, and the scene
of many of her former husband’s discoveries. Here Rumford employed
himself in scientific pursuits of a miscellaneous nature. The union of
the American-born citizen of the world with the widow of the
illustrious Frenchman does not appear to have been a happy one; and
there is evidence that, towards the end of his life, Rumford had
become unpopular in Parisian society. Cuvier attributes this to a
certain coarseness and want of urbanity of manner; possibly, however,
the fault was less in the person criticised than in the Parisian
standard of criticism, for the charge seems inconsistent with the
tenor of Rumford’s life.
Rumford’s death took place at Auteuil on the 21st of August 1814, in
the sixty-second year of his age. He left some bequests for the
promotion of science in America; the rest of his property, which does
not appear to have been great, he left to his relatives. His only
daughter inherited the title of Countess of Rumford, with the
continuation of her father’s Bavarian pension. She is, we believe,
still alive, and has long resided in Paris.
Rumford, whose memoirs we have now detailed, was not a faultless
character, or a person in every respect exemplary; but making due
allowances for circumstances in which he was at the outset
unfortunately placed, and keeping in mind that every man is less or
more the creature of the age in which he lives, we arrive at the
conclusion, that few individuals occupying a public position have been
so thoroughly deserving of esteem. The practical, calm, and
comprehensive nature of his mind, his resolute and methodical habits,
the benevolence and usefulness of his projects, all excite our
admiration. Cuvier speaks of Rumford as ‘having been the benefactor of
his species without loving or esteeming them, as well as of holding
the opinion that the mass of mankind ought to be treated as mere
machines.’ A remark this which is applicable to not a few men who have
been eminent for labors of a humane description, and which naturally
gives rise to this other remark――that a good intellectual method,
directed to practical ends, is often of more value to mankind than
what is called a good heart.