Graf Rumford 1798
The Warm Breeders 1
The nature of heat was unknown until the end of the 18th century. One assumed heat to be a substance (caloricum) present up to a certain amount in each body. Rumford, born as Benjamin Thompson in Massachusetts, fought with the English in the American War of Independance and fled to Europe after the English were defeated. There he led a dazzling life. In Munich he was knighted. He found out that heat from the drilling of cannon balls could be generated over an unlimited period of time when you kept drilling and could thus impossibly come from the body itself. He concluded that it was generated through the movement. Furthermore, he invented the Rumford cooking-stove, the Rumford soup and the Rumford kiln, he designed and laid out (???) the English Garden in Munich and founded the Royal Institution in London.