Collected works of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford

[Reedtb2@cs.com]

Dear All:

Benjamin THompson was born in Woburn, MA about 1755 and died a wealthy Count Rumford in England.  He has long been one of my intellectual heroes.

In particular, he was the inventor of the wood/coal "range" for cooking, the Rumford fireplace, Rumford baking powder, the mechanical equivalent of heat etc.  

When Ron Larson first became interested in stoves I recommended reading (skimming) the collected works of RUmford (edited by Prof. Sanford Brown at MIT) and I reread them after a dozen years.  I also recommend reading his biography - what a brilliant rascal.  

I am convinced that Rumford knew more practical things about stoves than any of us here at "Stoves", so check him out if you can find him.

                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my trip around the world to study gasifiers in 1996 I visited the Rumford gardens in Munich.  I was recently reading my Emails from that trip and came across the following...

"10/21
Hi!

All work and no play makes Tom a dull boy.  I arrived in Munich at noon Sunday and my plane wasn't until 7, so I looked at the map, what to do.  

You may remember that Ron Larson and I recommended strongly the collected works of Benjamin Thompson, Lord Rumford (Sandford Brown, Harvard Press?).  He has more understanding of stoves than anyone I have yet seen on the stove net.  He was the right hand man of the King of Bavaria 1790-1810 and made many changes there and many of his most important discoveries there.  I was delighted to find the "Englische Gartens", founded by Rumford in walking distance of the station.  

I was more delighted to find the Rumford Schloss (castle) there.  The day before I had visited the King Ludwig schlosses, Linderhof and Neuschwanstein.  The Rumford Schloss is very modest by comparison, but there it was in the Garten.  

The largest technical museum in the world is the Deutsch museum, so I went there next.  A wonderful museum, too big to see in a week, let alone my 3 hours.  However, they have a full scale reproduction of the cave paintings at Altimira that thrilled me.  But I didn't find anything on gasifiers and not much on stoves.  

Put these on your list to see next time you are in Muensch."

I am currently reading "The Clan of the Cave Bear" by Auel, her imaginative story about the interface between Neanderthal and Cro Magnon man.  Lots in it about the importance of fire to early man.  

Regards,                            TOM REED