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Science and Charity: Count Rumford and His Followers*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Fritz Redlich
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The topic of this paper might at first glance appear to lack interest. In fact, however, it is for many reasons of real significance. The men who brought about the set of achievements, to be discussed, and its migration, respectively, played roles on the stages of history, science, and business; and a whole bundle of social and economic problems was solved by a concatenation of measures. Last but not least, we can study here almost step by step a case of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century institutional migration.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , August 1971 , pp. 184 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1971

References

page 184 note 1 Short biographies of Rumford are in the various national biographical handbooks, the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, the Dictionary of American Biography, and the Dictionary of National Biography. There are also a number of full-fledged biographies which, however, will be cited only to the extent that information has been derived therefrom.

page 185 note 1 For a detailed and critical presentation of Rumford's activities in Bavarian military service, see Oskar Bezzel, Geschichte des kurpfalzbayerischen Heeres von 1778 bis 1803, Kriegsarchiv, Bayerisches, Geschichte des Bayerischen Heeres, Vol. V (München, 1930)Google Scholar, see index under Thompson. A good deal of detailed information on Rumford can be found in the Bibliothèque Britanique, series Sciences et Arts, XX (1802), pp. 192 ff.; XXI (1802), pp. 190 ff.; XXXIV (1817), p. 114.Google Scholar A contemporary “Biographical Memoir of the Late Count Rumford” is in The Tradesman or Commercial Magazine, V (London, 1815)Google Scholar, see index.

page 186 note 1 New Fragments (London, 1892), p. 168Google Scholar, quoted from Dictionary of National Biography. Tyndall's statement is based on the title of Essay VI “Of the Management of Fire and the Economy of Fuel”, in Essays Political, Economic and Philosophical, II (London, 1798), pp. 3 ffGoogle Scholar. This essay can be found reprinted also in Rumford's Collected Works, II (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), pp. 309 ff.Google Scholar, henceforth to be cited as Harvard Collection. There are also the Complete Works of Count Rumford (Boston 1874). Vol. IV contains a valuable bibliography of writings on Rumford preceding the date of publication of this collection.

page 186 note 2 Bigelow, Jacob, Inaugural Address Delivered in the Chapel of the University at Cambridge, December 11, 1816 (Boston, 1817), p. 20.Google Scholar Rumford had bequeathed $1000 and the reversion of other sums to Harvard for an institution and professorship to teach and offer public lectures accompanied with proper experiments on the utility of physical and mathematical sciences for the improvement of the useful arts and for the extension of the industry, prosperity, happiness and well being of society; ibid., p. iii.

page 186 note 3 First edition, London 1796 and several later ones. The citations in this paper, taken from Vol. I, refer to the third edition of 1797, those taken from Vol. II to the edition of 1798. A German edition of Rumford's Essays appeared under the title Benjamin Grafen von Rumford Kleine Schriften politischen, ökonomischen und philosophischen Inhalts nach der zweyten Ausgabe aus dem Englischen übersetzt (Weimar, 1797). It is not accessible to me. Some of the Essays were translated into French and can be found in Duquesnoy, Adrien Cyprien, ed., Recueil des Mémoires sur les établissemens [sic] d'humanité (Paris, 1798 ff.)Google Scholar. There are complete French and Spanish translations of Rumford's Essays under the following titles: Essais politiques, économiques et philosophiques, tr. de l'anglais par L.M.D.C. [Le Marquis de Courtivron], 6 vols, I-II: Genève, An VII (1799); III-V: Paris, An X (1802)–An XIII (1804); VI: Paris, 1806; and Essayos politicos, económicos y philosóficos del Conde de Rumford, traduidos de órden de la Real Sociedad Económica (Madrid, 1800).

Dr Hans Jaeger of the University of Munich, on the author's request, very kindly perused the primary material on Rumford and his achievements extant in the Munich archives, namely, the Bayerische Allgemeine Staatsarchiv, the Staatsarchiv für Oberbayern, and the Munich Stadtarchiv. In the Staatsarchiv für Oberbayern there are records of the Armenenstalt “1788–1825”. In fact, however, they contain only bills of and correspondence with purveyors or employees for the years after 1805. It is known that Rumford, going to England, took a good many manuscripts to this country and worked them up in his Essays. This may explain at least some of the gaps in the records. See also below, p. 209, note 1.

page 187 note 1 See Essay I, chapter I.

page 188 note 1 Bezzel, op. cit., pp. 151–153, 238, 309, 496. For the following, see Essay I, chapters IV and V.

page 188 note 2 This was possible because of a preceding dwelling registration.

page 188 note 3 Essays, I, pp. 242, 243; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 49, 213.

page 189 note 1 See p. 208.

page 189 note 2 When in the middle of the nineteenth century, science became more sophisticated, Rumford's emphasis on detail appeared ludicrous. See Ellis, George E., Memoir of Sir Benjamin Thompson Count Rumford with Notices of his Daughter (Philadelphia, n.d. [1817]), p. 200.Google Scholar Ellis' source, an article by Lord Brougham, could not be located.

page 189 note 3 Essays, I, p. 102; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 89, 181.

page 189 note 4 Essays, I, p. 204; Harvard Collection, V, p. 181.

page 191 note 1 Essays, I, pp. 209–211, 243; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 185–187, 213; Plain Words about Food: The Rumford Kitchen Leaflets 1899 (Boston, 1899), p. 22Google Scholar; 1970 World Almanac, p. 898.

page 191 note 2 Of course the costs were incurred in Bavarian currency, but Rumford gives them in sterling currency, just as he transposed the Bavarian weights into lbs.

page 192 note 1 For the documentation of the preceding, see the reference to the Essays above, p. 191, note 1. Rumford's theoretical error is brought out in Essays, I, p. 194; Harvard Collection, V, p. 172. The error seems to have been widely held in that period; see Décade Philosophique, XXVII (1801), p. 198.Google Scholar

page 192 note 2 Essays, I, p. 217; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 191, 192.

page 192 note 3 Essays, I, pp. 213, 214; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 189, 190. Articles on “Rumfordsche Suppe” und “Rumfordscher Suppengries” can also be found in Krünitz, Johann Georg, Oekonomisch-technologische Encyclopädie oder allge-meines System der Staats- Stadt- Haus- und Landwirthschaft und der Kunst-geschichte, Vol. 128, ed. Flörke, Gustav (Brünn, 1821), pp. 442–498.Google Scholar

page 193 note 1 Essays, I, p. 196.

page 193 note 2 See below, p. 195.

page 193 note 3 SirEden, F., Bart., The State of the Poor or an History of the Labouring Classes in England (London, 1797), I, pp. 496–503.Google Scholar

page 193 note 4 “Of Food”, in Essays, I, pp. 278, 279; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 244–246.

page 193 note 5 Essays, I, pp. 283ff.; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 248ff.; Eden, op. cit., I, pp. 501–503. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, it must be stated that Rumford was not the first to suggest soups. He devised a particular one which was cheap and nutritious. Soups were prepared and eaten in France in the seventeenth century, if not earlier. Vauban recommended them for feeding soldiers. Eden testifies to the use of cheap soups in certain parts of England. In Germany, beer soups were common fare. Other kinds of soups were eaten in the homes of the lower strata and dispensed at low-class eating places. Soups prepared with water instead of with beer or milk were often called Bettelsuppen, Rumford reports that bread soups were common fare for Bavarian soldiers; but on the whole he felt that the general use of soups in Germany could be increased.

page 194 note 1 Redlich, Fritz, The Military Enterpriser and his Workforce (Wiesbaden, 1965), II, p. 193Google Scholar; contemporary and other sources are cited there. What Rumford has to say about the meals of Bavarian soldiers, being the result of official experiments made by corporals on order, are not very illuminating, see Essays, I, pp. 225ff.; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 197ff. These soldiers were made to appear fed above standard.

page 194 note 2 Cuvier, Georges, “Biographical Memoir of Sir Benjamin Thomson [sic] Count Rumford”, in: The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, VIII (1830), p. 227.Google Scholar The original of Cuvier's piece “Eloge historique”, read before the French Institute, January 9, 1815, in: Recueil des éloges historiques (Paris, 1861), II, pp. 24–55Google Scholar, is not accessible to me. Another contemporary looked at Rumford as a “projector”, no praise for a contemporary aristocrat; see, Morris, Ann Cary, ed., The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris (New York, 1888), p. 335.Google Scholar

page 195 note 1 For example, he established in all garrisons gardens in which soldiers were permitted to grow what they wanted but were supposed to plant potatoes for their own use; see Essays, I, pp. 10, 11; Harvard Collection, IV, pp. 10, 11; also Essays, I, pp. 282ff.; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 249ff.

page 195 note 2 Antoine-Alexis Cadet de Vaux tried to develop the by then established soupe économique into a potato soup pure and simple, and he did so about twenty-five years after Rumford's original achievement; see L'Ami de l'économie aux amis de l'humanité sur les pains divers dans la composition desquels entre la pomme-de-terre, ainsi que sur les nouvelles appropriations d'un de ses produits, le parenchyme, dont la conversion en pain offre la solution du plus important problème de l'économie alimentaire des classes indigentes; observations communiquées à la Société royale et centrale d'agriculture (Paris, 1816), pp. 52ff.Google Scholar, chapter “Des soupes économiques”.

page 195 note 3 See above, p. 191.

page 195 note 4 “Rapport au Ministre de l'intérieur par le Comité général de bienfaisance sur la soupe de légumes dite à la Rumford, publié par ordre du Ministre par Antoine Alexis Cadet-de-Vaux”, in: Décade Philosophique, XXVII (1801), p. 199.Google Scholar The item of about 1680 is mentioned also in the bibliography by Granier, Camille, Essai de Bibliographie Charitable (Paris, 1891), p. 625.Google Scholar It is ascribed to a cleric by the name of Bichon and was presumably printed at Saintes. But since the title is nowhere given, the book could not be identified or located.

page 196 note 1 Essays, I, pp. 290ff.; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 254–258; Louis Du Bois, Des Moyens de diminuer la consommation des substances par l'emploi écono-mique des substances alimentaires (Châtillon-sur-Seine, 1817), p. 51: Eden, op. cit., I, pp. 499, 527; and idem, “Soup for the Poor”, in: The Annual Register of a View of the History, Politics and Literature for the Year 1797 (London, 1800), p. 441.

page 196 note 2 Essays, I, p. 217; Harvard Collection, V, p. 192.

page 196 note 3 Essays, I, p. 244; Harvard Collection, V, p. 214. As to the reaction of an individual visitor see The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, II, pp. 332– 341. Another visitor was Abraham Joly from Geneva; see below, p. 204.

page 196 note 4 See pp. 1861, note 3. Karl Marx contemptuously mentions Rumford's “cookbook” (the Essays) in Das Kapital, I, chap. 22, sec. 4.

page 197 note 1 Chapter V of his “Essays on the Management of Fire and the Economy of Fuel”, in Essays, II, pp. 3ff.; Harvard Collection, II, pp. 426ff. As to the Verona episode, see Essays, I, pp. 110–112, 148, 149; Harvard Collection, II, pp. 431, 432.

page 197 note 2 Rumford, , The Complete Works (Boston, 1874), IV, pp. 819, 820.Google Scholar

page 197 note 3 Ausführlicher Unterricht zur Bereitung der Rumfortschen Spaar-Suppen, nebst einer neuen Methode, wie diese Suppen durch eine aus Knochen bereitete wohlfeile Gallerte kräftiger zu machen, und den Mitteln, wie solche am leichtesten einzuführen sind […] Ingleichen: des Bürger Casterins Anweisung aus den Kartoffeln die Hälfte mehr Mehl, als auf die bekannte Weise zu gewinnen und die Kartoffeln von einer Erndte zur andern aufzubewahren, Neue Aufl. (Leipzig, 1805 ?).Google Scholar As to Hamburg, see p. 13. Also Delessert, Sur les fourneaux à la Rumford (see below, p. 205, note 2), p. 31. The German item is of limited value, knowledge being derived mostly from Delessert whose Paris soup kitchen its author had visited and whose pamphlets he had read. As to Delessert and his kitchen, see below, p. 205. In the Stadtarchiv, Munich, there are the following pertinent items: Joseph Maria Friedrich Piaggino, Der Hofkammerrat Piaggino und General Tompson [sic] oder das Münchner Armeninstitut (Strasbourg, 1791); Apologie der Rumfordschen Suppenanstalt für Seelsorger gegen grundlose Invektive des Freysinger Wochenblattes (n.p., 1804); Die Rumfordsche Armen-Verpflege-Anstalt in München (München, 1846).Google Scholar

page 198 note 1 Rapports et Comptes Rendus du Comite Central d'Administration des Soupes Economiques de Paris pendant l'An X (Paris, An XI (1803), table; henceforth to be cited as Rapports. The same kind of information can also be found in Recueil de rapports, de mémoires et d'expériences sur les soupes économiques et les fourneaux à la Rumford; suivi de deux mémoires sur la substitution de l'orge mondé et grué au riz, etc. Par les citoyens Cadet-Devaux, , Decandolle, Delessert, Money et Parmentier (Paris, An 10 (1801)).Google Scholar

page 198 note 2 Of the advance publications some are available in Houghton Library, Harvard University. On that of Essay IV it is stated: “But as some of the essays are upon subjects highly interesting at the moment, each essay will be published separately as soon as it comes from the press.”

page 198 note 3 (London, 1797), I, pp. 527–531. The quotations refer to the essay “Of Food”, in: Essays, I, pp. 189ff.; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 169ff.

page 198 note 4 Essays, II, p. 151; Harvard Collection, II, p. 432.

page 199 note 1 Society for the Bettering of the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, The Reports, I (London, 1798), Nos XII and XXVII, pp. 89ff., especially 89, 95, and 205ff., respectively. This series will henceforth be cited Reports.

page 199 note 2 Britanique, Bibliothéque, series Sciences et Arts, XX (1802), pp. 207, 208.Google Scholar One finds cited a Dutch contemporary item on the Rumford hearth which is not accessible to me: lets voor de Armen: zesde stuk; met de afbeelding van een Rumfordsche Spaaroven (Amsteldam, 1801).

page 199 note 3 This program is brought out particularly clearly in his “Letter to Reverend Dr. Majendrie of Windsor”, in Reports II (1799), Appendix, pp. 24ff.Google Scholar

page 199 note 4 Suggestions Offered to the Consideration of the Public, for the Purpose of Reducing the Consumption of Bread Corn; and Relieving at the same time the Labouring People by the Substitution of other Cheap, Wholesome, and Nourishing Food; and especially by Means of Soup Establishments and in Particular to the More Opulent Classes of the Community (London 1799, 2d edition corrected and enlarged, London 1800), p. 2. Incidentally, there was published a Swedish item by O. Swartz, “Rumfordska Soppan”, in: Almanach för Året 1815 Till Stockholms Horisont. The item is not accessible to the author.

page 200 note 1 Reports, I, No XXXIX, p. 311.

page 200 note 2 A contemporary little cookbook The Family Receipt Book or the Cottager's Cook, Doctor and Friend (Oswestry, 1817) brings out what contemporary humanitarians wanted poor people to cook and eat. Equally telling is Hints for the Relief of the Poor (London, 1795), pp. 8ff.Google Scholar On the other hand, if one wants to know what the upper classes ate in contemporary England, one may peruse Woodforde, James, The Diary of a Country Parson, 1758–1802 (London, World Classics, 1949)Google Scholar. For a modern scholarly treatment of the subject, see Drummond, J. C. and Wilbraham, Ann, The Englishman's Food: A History of Five Centuries of English Diet (London, 1939)Google Scholar, chapter X: “Eighteenth-Century Food”). There are references to Rumford on pp. 307, 349, 392, 423.

page 200 note 3 The description of a soup kitchen at Spitalfields in Reports, I, pp. 303ff., does not refer to the one of 1795 but to a later one, set up in 1798. The Quakers had a hand in it.

page 200 note 4 There are two biographies of Colquhoun, an old one written under the pseudonym of Iatros for the European Magazine, LVIII (1818). It is worthless in the context of this paper; see pp. 305, 409. Realistic is the unpublished Harvard honor thesis of 1959 by Martin Joseph Faigel, An Introductory Life of Patrick Colquhoun, 1745–1820. Of course, there is also the article in the Dictionary of National Biography.

page 201 note 1 This Committee received until March 10, 1800 a total of £10,108.19.0. Twenty-three corporate bodies contributed about one third of this amount; the rest came from 540 individual contributors. Some of both categories contributed twice. See General Report (see below, p. 203, note 1), p. 3.

page 201 note 2 Pettigrew, Thomas Joseph, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late John Coakley Lettson with a Selection from his Correspondence (London, 1817), II, p. 363.Google Scholar

page 201 note 3 Wright, Charles and Fayl, C. Ernest, A History of Lloyd's (London, 1928), p. 208.Google Scholar They cite The Report of the Committee at Lloyd's Coffee-House for the Relief of Industrious Poor of 1800. It is identical with the General Report cited in note 1, as a page inserted in the latter item indicates.

page 201 note 4 [Patrick Colquhoun] An Account of a Meat and Soup Charity established in the Metropolis in the Year 1797 with Observations relative to the Situation of the Poor with regard to food and […] by a Magistrate, i.e., Colquhoun. His authorship cannot be doubted. On p. 6 one finds the statement that the writer of the tract and the superintendent of the charity were identical and on p. 15 Colquhoun is indicated as the one on whose order payments are made. For the quotation, see p. 5; Reports, I, pp. 228, 236.

page 202 note 1 So-called leg-of-beef soup seems to have become the standard for the English soup kitchens. A recipe can be found in the above Suggestions, p. 16. It contained, besides the meat, peas, barley, onions, salt, the typical ingredients of the Rumford soup.

page 202 note 2 See above, p. 198.

page 202 note 3 Baker, James, The Life of Sir Thomas Bernard, Baronet (London, 1819), pp. ix, 11–15, 33, 43Google Scholar; for a short biography of Bernard, see Dictionary of National Biography. As to the soup house at Iver, see Reports, I, No 18, pp. 140ff. Much material on the Society for Bettering the Condition and increasing the Comforts of the Poor is in ibid., I, pp. 413ff.

page 203 note 1 See their General Report (London, 1800), pp. 5–7. As to their policy, see below, p. 204.

page 203 note 2 General Report, Appendix I.

page 204 note 1 Series Literature, Vol. I, No 4, March 1796, pp. 499ff.

page 204 note 2 A note on Joly is in the Dictionnaire Historique et Biographique de la Suisse. His trip to Munich is mentioned in Ausführlicher Unterricht (see above, p. 197, note 3), p. 17. His letter of 1797 could not be located in the original periodical. For a translation into English, see George E. Ellis, Memoir of SirThompson, Benjamin, Count Rumford with Notices of his Daughter (Philadelphia, 1871), pp. 453–455.Google Scholar

page 204 note 3 Rapports, An XI (1803), p. 20.

page 205 note 1 Dictionnaire de Biographie Française, X (Paris, 1965)Google Scholar; Join-Lambert, Etienne, Benjamin Delessert, son œuvre législative et sociale, Thèse (Paris, 1939), pp. 40ff.Google Scholar; for the following, see p. 45.

page 205 note 2 Delessert, Benjamin, Sur les fourneaux à la Rumford, et les soupes économiques (Paris, An VIII (1800))Google Scholar; Notice sur les soupes à la Rumford établies à Paris, rue du Mail no 16 (An 8 (1800)). This item, not accessible to me, is probably a reprint of the article cited below, p. 206, note 1.

page 205 note 3 XXVI, p. 500. Antoine-Alexis Cadet de Vaux (1743–1828), a pharmacist with a permanent interest in matters of food and the founder of the Journal de Paris, published two letters in this paper recommending the soup charity. Delessert, Sur les fourneaux, pp. 19, 20, 27. Biographical data on Cadet de Vaux are in Dictionnaire de Biographie Française. He became for a time président de la Société des soupes économiques.

page 206 note 1 “Notice sur les soupes de Rumford établies à Paris rue du Mail No 16”, in: Journal de Physique, de Chimie, d'Histoire Naturelle et des Arts, L (1800), pp. 200ff.Google Scholar; Join-Lambert, op. cit., p. 45.

page 206 note 2 Delessert, Sur les fourneaux, p. 34; see also below, p. 212, and also p. 214, note 1.

page 207 note 1 Rapports, p. 40; Delessert, Sur les fourneaux, pp. 26,27; Join-Lambert, op. cit., pp. 45, 46. Delessert felt strongly that the tokens should be sold at a place away from the kitchen, thereby making it impossible for the kitchen personnel to distinguish between the indigents who received the soup gratis and the workmen able to purchase their food.

page 207 note 2 Join-Lambert, op. cit., p. 49.

page 207 note 3 Rapports, table.

page 207 note 4 According to “Notice sur les Soupes de Rumford établies à Paris, rue du Mail”, in: Journal de Physique, de Chimie, d'Histoire Naturelle et des Arts, L (1800), p. 200Google Scholar, there was a soup kitchen in Marseilles which, however, does not appear in the table of the Rapports.

page 208 note 1 In Belgium, then under French control, there were by 1800 two soup kitchens in Brussels and one at Vilvorde, all located in the departement of the Dyle.

page 208 note 2 The British Museum owns a booklet of 1803 issued by the Real Sociedad Eco-nómica Matritense de Amigos del Pais, Años hace que el grande ingenio del Conde de Rumford. It contains a proposal to establish cheap meals for the poor of Madrid on Count Rumford's principles. Actually, the ladies' junta of the Spanish society, just mentioned, distributed comidas económicas according to Rumford's recipe; sea Shafer, Robert Jones, The Economic Societies in the Spanish World (Syracuse, 1958), p. 93.Google Scholar Another Spanish booklet of the same period deals with the Rumford hearth: Julian Antonio Rodriguez, Método de economizar el combustible en nuestras casas, ó descripcion de dos cocinas económicas, aplicadas á los usos que hay en España de componer las comidas: todo ello fundado en las mismas teorías físicas de que se sirvió el conde de Rumford para la invencion de las cocinas públicas y particulares establecidas en Munich, Lóndres, etc. (Madrid, 1804).

page 209 note 1 Essays, I, pp. 27ff., 118f.; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 24ff., 104. According to Dr Hans Jaeger's report there are in the Staatsarchiv für Oberbayern in the records of the Generallandesdirektion such on Stiftungssachen. They contain material on the founding and the management of the Armenanstalt. There is also a package labeled “Rumfordische Suppenanstalt”.

page 209 note 2 Essays, I, pp. 57, 59, 60; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 50, 52.

page 209 note 3 Essays, I, pp. 30, 31; Harvard Collection, V, p. 27.

page 210 note 1 12 guilders (florins) are equal to 1£, Essays, I, Appendix; III, pp. 428–431; Harvard Collection, V, pp. 350, 351.

page 211 note 1 Ausführlicher Unterricht, op. cit., p. 18.

page 211 note 2 Essays, I, p. 204; Harvard Collection, V, p. 180.

page 211 note 3 Suggestions, op. cit., pp. 3–6. These were probably standard procedures. One finds very similar by-laws in Society for the Relief of the Industrial Poor, The Economy of an Institution Established at Spitalfields, London, for the Purpose of Supplying the Poor with Good Meat Soup at a Penny per Quart (London, 1799), pp. 12, 13. Reports, I, No XXXIX, pp. 303ff., deals with this establishment.

page 212 note 1 Colquhoun, op. cit., pp. 16, 24.

page 212 note 2 Colquhoun, op. cit., p. 23; General Report, p. 7.

page 212 note 3 Statistical material on the financing of the English soup charity was given in section II, since it was considered inadvisable to tear it apart from other data with which it is connected in the main source.

page 212 note 4 See pp. 206, 213–214.

page 212 note 5 Delessert, Sur les fourneaux, pp. 35ff.

page 212 note 6 Join-Lambert, op. cit., p. 43.

page 213 note 1 Information on Colibert as well as Gilet (see p. 206) could not be unearthed.

page 213 note 2 “Notice sur les Soupes de Rumford, établies à Paris, rue du Mail no 16”, in: Journal de Physique, de Chimie, d'Histoire Naturelle et des Arts, L (1800), p. 203Google Scholar; Décade Philosophique, XXVII (1801), p. 201.Google Scholar

page 213 note 3 Rapports, p. 69. For the transposition of dates given according to the republican calendar into those of the Gregorian, see Grande Encyclopédie, VIII, p. 910. The franc of 1796 was nothing but the livre tournois decimally subdivided.

page 214 note 1 Delessert, op. cit., pp. 34, 35; see above, p. 212.

page 215 note 1 Leroy, Alphonse, Letter to the editors of La Décade Philosophique, Litéraire et Politique, XXIV (1800), pp. 518, 519.Google Scholar Biographical data on C. Delaitre could not be found.

page 215 note 2 Op. cit., p. 150. It remains an open question whether the term is useful for modern research. If so, one could define as a “practical philanthropist” any person whose actions are philanthropical in character, while his ultimate motives and goals are political or economic or what have you. (In contrast, a genuine philanthropist could be defined as a person whose ultimate motives and goals as well as his actions are philanthropical.) Rumford's description as a “practical philanthropist” should not be misunderstood to mean that he aimed at pecuniary gain. By contemporary standards this would actually have made the aristocrat a contempted “projector”, an opprobrium which, as an innovator, he could not entirely avoid (see p. 194, note 2). Moreover, in the eighteenth century an invention saving fuel and cost had no market value.

page 216 note 1 Colquhoun, An Account (see p. 201, note 4), p. 5.

page 216 note 2 These biographies are cited above, p. 200, note 4, and p. 202, note 3.

page 216 note 3 See the pertinent essays in the Harvard Collection, Vol. IV.