COUNT RUMFORD: PHYSICIST EXTRAORDINARY.

By Sanborn C. Brown'35. New York: Anchor Books, 1962. 178pp. $.95.

Just why Benjamin Thompson of Woburn, Massachusetts, should be almost unknown today is hard to explain, but he is, either under that name or his other one, Count Rumford. Few Americans of any period could match his career, in worldly success or real accomplishment. Professor Brown's too brief account of his career in the Science Study Series helps bring him back to life, in a volume intended for "high school pupils and others interested in science." Those words are over-modest; the book is good reading for any adult, most of whom will find some of the science hard to understand and all of whom will find Thompson a fascinating figure.

Born on a farm in Woburn in 1753, apprenticed at thirteen to a dry goods merchant, he was made interested in science by Loammi Baldwin, later a noted engineer himself, in part by such dangerous acts as flying kites in thunderstorms. Self-educated, at nineteen he taught school in Concord, New Hampshire, married a wealthy widow, became a friend of Governor John Wentworth, a major in the militia, and an informer for the British authorities. At twenty-one he fled Concord ahead of tar and feathers and took refuge with General Gage in Boston, leaving behind his wife and child. In brief, by that early age he had established a life pattern of achieving wealth and position without regard for others or any concern for ethical conduct—achieved through tremendous drive and intellect, good looks, and the ability to make himself liked when he wanted to be.

In 1776 he went to England, got himself made private secretary to Lord George Germain, became in turn Secretary of the Province of Georgia, Under Secretary of State for the Northern Department, a Fellow of the Royal Society, Lieutenant Colonel of the King's American Dragoons, a Colonel in the British Army, a Member of the British Intelligence on the continent, and finally Sir Benjamin Thompson.

In 1784 he moved to Europe and offered his services to the Elector of Bavaria, who made him a colonel in his army too. His first task was to reorganize the supplying of food and clothing to the troops. To do this he developed scientific tests for the warmth of various materials, in the process refuting the old caloric theory of heat and discovering the theory of convection. To produce better and cheaper food and uniforms, he shut up all the unemployed in workhouses, solving great social problems, and kept them all busy, with special tasks for children between the ages of four and seven. The food was essentially a pea soup, so many ounces a day, cooked over a fire in a box he invented and called a stove. He also invented a device to measure the light in his factories, in units he called candles, and provided by lamps which he also invented. The Elector, naturally pleased, made him Minister of War, Minister of Police, Major General, Chamberlain of the Court, and in 1792, age thirty-nine, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Count Rumford (the original name of Concord, New Hampshire).

In the French wars he saw some service, and invented a field stove that was adopted by all the armies of Europe, asked to return to America to set up a national military academy, founded the Royal Institution in London to promote scientific study, and in 1801 moved to Paris, a friend of Napoleon and Talleyrand and still a colonel in the British army. Here, on the Rue d'Anjou, he invented central steam heating systems—no doubt still in use in Paris—as well as better carriages and drip coffee pots. Here in Paris Count Rumford died in 1814, at the end of a career so extraordinary and so well described here that you will join me in waiting with impatience for the forthcoming full-length biography that is promised to us by Professor Brown. Let us hope he can pause in his distinguished career as physicist at M.I.T. long enough to take what will be an equally distinguished place as an historian.