The electronic version of Rumford's two essays on fireplaces was scanned from photocopies of Rumford's original essays kindly provided by Stanley W. Brown, Curator of Rare Books, Dartmouth College Library. "Essay IV of Chimney Fireplaces", including all the Plates, was first published in 1796. "Essay XI Supplementary Observations concerning Chimney Fire-places" was published by Rumford two years latter in 1798. Rumford published his essays as he wrote them and then in "Collected Works" as he assembled enough essays for a whole volume. From the page numbers beginning with "303" I think Dartmouth's photocopy was from the "Collected Works". The other page numbers, "x 2", "z 4", "BB 3", etc. don't seem to be sequential but are probably from the stand-alone essays. I've tried to be faithful to the text and the style to the limits of my ability to format in html. My paragraphs are a little too indented, the right margins are not rectified and I've omitted the "next page clue" words at the bottom of each page. I've also not reproduced the old fonts like the "s" that looks like an "f" and the connected "ct" and word breaks are not always as in the original. But I think it's pretty faithful. I've included (below) a photo scan of an actual page from the original so you can see for yourself how it looked. I also compared the text with that which was re-set in 1969 by Sanborn C. Brown, Stanley's father and Rumford's great twentieth century biographer. There are some differences, mostly in punctuation. I tended to favor the original even though Sanborn's grammar and sense of parallel construction was better. Nevertheless, I get cross-eyed quickly and I'm sure there are numerous errors. I'd be obliged if you would email me with any errors you catch. Jim Buckley, 6/4/99

[Notes on the Website Publication]
[Advertisement] [Chapter I] [Chapter II] [Chapter III] [Plates]
[Supplementary Observations]

Buckley Rumford Fireplaces
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