[41] Count Rumford was one of the founders of the Royal Institution, the
workshop of the Royal Society. In the basement of the house of the
Institution in Albemarle Street, was fitted up an experimental kitchen,
with "Rumford stoves," roasters, and boilers. One of his earliest stoves
is in the Museum of the Royal Society, at Burlington House. Count
Rumford lived some time at 45, Brompton Row, where the double windows in
the house-front long denoted the scientific aims of the ingenious
tenant.
[42] See Hall-fires, described at p. 122.
[43] It was not till the reign of William III. that coal became our
staple fuel.
[44] See _Popular Errors Explained_. New edit. p. 42. 1858. The old
custom of ringing the curfew-bell is retained in several villages and
towns. (See Mr. Syer Cuming's paper in the _Journal of the British
Archæological Association_, vol. iv. p. 153. Also, _Notes and Queries_,
vols. ii. iii. iv. vi. vii. viii.) In proof that the custom cannot
justly be considered an evidence of an unworthy state of subjection, is
the fact that the obligation to extinguish fires and lights at a certain
hour was imposed upon his subjects by David I. King of Scotland, in his
_Leges Burgarum_; and in this case no one ever imagined that it conveyed
any sign of infamy or servitude. Curfew-ringing is common in the south
of Scotland, at Kelso, and other towns in Roxburghshire, which appears
to prove that it cannot have originated with the Norman Conqueror.