The progress of scientific chemistry in our own times : with biographical notices / by William A. Tilden.

  • William A. Tilden
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The progress of scientific chemistry in our own times : with biographical notices / by William A. Tilden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, born 26th March 1753, at Rumford (now Concord), in New Hampshire, United States of America. He began life as a schoolmaster at Bradford (Mass.). The War of Independence breaking out, he was made a Major of Militia, but owing, apparently, to jealousy on the part of his brother officers, he was driven to join the royalist troops, and came to England in 1776. Here he rendered himself use¬ ful to the Ministry, and received a commission as Lieutenant- Colonel for service in America. Returning again to England, he received permission to travel on the Continent. In 1785 he entered the service of the Elector of Bavaria, and for his public services received the title of Count. In 1799 he re¬ turned to England, and engaged in the foundation of the Royal Institution in London, the purpose of which was to encourage the application of science to all kinds of useful purposes. He was instrumental in engaging Thomas Young and Humphry Davy as the first professors. Rumford was the first to prove the quantitative relation between heat and mechanical work. Returning to the Continent, he married, in 1805, Madame Lavoisier, widow of the chemist, and purchased a house at Auteuil, where he died 21st August 1814. [Memoir published in connection with an edition of his works, by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, about 1870. By G. E. Ellis.] Johann Theobald Silbermann, born 1st Dec. 1806. Employed at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, Paris, and at the Sorbonne. Associated with Favre in thermo¬ chemical researches. Died in Paris, July 1865. [Poggendorff s Handworterbuch. ] Hans Peter Jurgen Julius Thomsen was born in Copen¬ hagen, 16th Feb. 1826. While a very young man, Thomsen patented a process for obtaining alumina and soda from cryolite, and this developed into a manufacture of consider¬ able importance in Denmark and some other countries. But Thomsen will be remembered chiefly for his important thermo- chemical work, of which the results are embodied in his Thermochemische Untersuchungen. In 1865 he became a teacher,
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