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346 condemned. Unwilling to remain in obscurity at home under a cloud of suspicion, he determined to seek a field of activity d-r here. Turning his property into money as far as possible he lelt his family in October, 1775, and they did not hear from him again until after the close of the war. It ap- pears that he was received on board of the British frigate Scarborough " in Newport, and thence taken to Boston, where, on the evacuation of the city, he was given despatches from Gen. William Howe to Lord George Germaine, secretary of Mate for the colonies. His behavior so impressed the minister that he was appointed in the colonial office. He directed immediate attention to mili- tary affairs, improved the accoutrements of the horse-guards, continued his experiments on gun- powder, and improved the construction of fire- arms. 'These services received the approbation of his superiors, and in 1780 he was appointed an under-secretary of state. Meanwhile he investi- gated various scientific subjects, including the co- hesion of bodies, a paper on which he submitted to the Royal society, where, in 1779, he was elected a fellow. In 1781, after the retirement of Lord George Gerraaine, he returned to this country and raised in New York the " King's American dra- goons," of which he was commissioned lieutenant- colonel on 24 Feb., 1783, and was stationed chiefly on Long Island, where he built a fort in Hunting- ton. Some authorities say that he served in the south, and at one time defeated Gen. Francis Mar- ion's men, destroying their stores. Before the close of the war he returned to England, and on the establishment of peace he obtained leave of absence to visit the continent with the intent i. in of offering his services to the Austrian govern- ment, which was then at war with Turkey. At Strusburg he met Prince Maximilian of Deux- Ponts, who furnished him with an introduction to his cousin, the elector of Bavaria. Col. Thomp- son was received at Munich with consideration, and invited to enter the Bavarian service, but he refused to accept any offer until he had visited Vienna. Finding that the war was near its close, he agreed to enter the service of the elector, pro- vided that he could obtain the consent of the Eng- lish authorities. In order to secure the requisite permission he returned to England, where his res- ignation of the command of the regiment was ac- cepted, and he was permitted to retain the half- pay of his rank until his death. The honor of Knighthood was also conferred on him. Near the end of 1784 he returned to Munich, where the reigning prince, Charles Theodore, gave him a con- fidential appointment with the rank of aide-de- ramp and chamberlain. He reorganized the entire military establishment of Bavaria, introducing a simpler code of tactics and a new system of disci- pline, also providing industrial schools for the sol- diers' children, and improving the construction ami mode of manufacture of arms and ordnance. Col. Thompson devoted himself to various other re- forms, such as the improvement of the dwellings of the working class, providing for them a better education and organizing homes of industry. But his greatest reform was the suppression of the sys- tem of beggary that was then prevalent in Bavaria. Beggars and vagabonds, the larger part of whom were also thieves, swarmed over the country, espe- cially in the larger towns. He removed them from the cities, provided them with work, and made them self-supporting. For his services he was made a member of the council of state, and suc- cessively major-general, lieutenant-general, com- mander-in-ehief of the general staff, minister of war, and superintendent of the police of the elec- torate, and he was also for a short time chief of the regency that exercised sovereignty during the ab- sence of the elector. He received decorations from Poland, and was elected a member of the Acade- mies of Munich and Mannheim. In 17UO the elec- tor, becoming vicar-general of the empire during the interval between the death of Joseph II. and the coronation of Leopold II., availed himself of the prerogatives of that office to make him a count of the Holy Roman empire, on which occasion he chose as his title the name of Rumford, the town in New Hampshire where he had married. While engaged with liis various reforms in connection with the army he was led to study domestic econ- omy. He investigated the properties and manage- ment of heat, and the amount of it that was pro- duced by the combustion of different kinds of fuel, by means of a calorimeter of his own invention. By reconstructing the fire-place he so improved the methods of warming apartments and cooking food that a saving in fuel of about one half was effected. His studies of cookery still rank high. He im- proved the construction of stoves, cooking-ranges, coal-grates, and chimneys, and showed that the non- conducting power of cloth is due to the air that is inclosed in its fibers. Among the other benefits in- troduced by him into Bavaria were improved breeds of horses and cattle, which he raised on a farm that he reclaimed from waste ground in the vicinity of Munich, and changed it into a park, where, after his leaving Bavaria, a monument was erected in his honor. His health failed under the pressure of these undertakings, and he obtained leave of ab- sence in 1795. After visiting Italy he spent some time in England, and while in that country he was invited by the secretary of state for Ireland to visit its charitable institutions with a view of remedying their evils and introducing reforms. The war be- tween France and Austria caused his return to Bavaria, where he maintained its neutrality, al- though the country was overrun with the soldiers of both nations. His health again failing, he was obliged to leave Munich, and he was sent to Eng- land as minister of Bavaria, but, being an English subject, he could not be received in that capacity at the English court. But he remained in Eng- land as the private agent of Bavaria, and in 17!Mi was chiefly instrumental in founding the Royal in- stitution, 'in which he caused Sir Humphry Davy to be called to the chair of chemistry. About this time he was invited to return to the United States, but, although disposed to do so, he finally removed to Paris in 1802, and there married, in 1804, the widow of the great French chemist Lavoisier, his first wife having died on 19 Jan., 1792, after being separated from him sixteen years. The remainder of his life was spent at the villa of his wife's former husband in Auteuil. busily engaged in scientific researches. Hi* greatest achievements in this direction were on the nature and effects of heat, with which his name will ever be associated. The work that has been done to demonstrate experimentally the doctrine of the " correlation of forces " was begun by him in a series of experiments that was suggested by the heat evolved in boring cannon. Count Rumford gave $5.000 to the American academy of arts and sciences, and a similar amount to the Royal society of London to found prizes bearing his name for the most important discoveries in light and heat, and the first award of the latter was made to himself. The greater part of his private collection of philosophical apparatus and specimens, and models of his own invention, were bequeathed to the Royal institution, and he also left