In another letter he says:
The buildings are advancing rapidly, and I hope the lecture room at least will be ready by the 1st of January. The laboratory will, I think, be found very convenient, being airy and well lighted.
During his stay at Harrogate Rumford made careful experiments on himself with regard to the warm bath. These are given in his thirteenth essay, on the ‘Salubrity of Warm Bathing.’ He found that a daily bath at ninety-six degrees or ninety-seven for half-an-hour two hours before dinner for five weeks increased the appetite, the digestion, the spirits, the strength, and the insensibility to cold.
On leaving Harrogate he went to Scotland.
A visit of ceremony was paid him by the magistrates of Edinburgh; he was consulted respecting the abolition of mendicity, and the measures which he recommended were speedily executed with complete success.
He was made an honorary member of the Royal Society and of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and he received a gold snuff-box as a compliment for his assistance in reforming the culinary establishment of Heriot’s Hospital, and was elected a member of the Society of Scotland for Bettering the Condition of the Poor. His letters of thanks for these last honours are preserved.
To the Lord Provost of Edinburgh he wrote:
I shall always remember with pleasure, and with the most sincere gratitude, the kind and flattering attentions I received in Edinburgh during my stay there. The public honours that were conferred on me by the corporation of the city and by the University were highly gratifying to me; but nothing affected me so deeply as the deference which was paid to my opinions and advice on subjects of public utility by men in the highest stations and of the most respectable character and abilities, and the liberality, zeal, and perseverance with which the measures I took the liberty to recommend were adopted and pursued.
May the important undertaking in which the inhabitants of Edinburgh are now engaged—the prevention of that most disgusting and disgraceful of public evils, mendicity—and the formation of a permanent establishment for the instruction and employment of the poor be completely successful, and may it serve as a model for imitation to every city and every town in Great Britain and Ireland.
To the Rev. George Baird, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, he wrote from the Royal Institution, March 21, 1801, thanking him for the honour which the Society in Scotland for Bettering the Condition and Improving the Comfort of the Poor had conferred on him by electing him a member.
During the autumn Webster wrote to Dr. Garnett to ask if he would help him to become his assistant. He wished this place in order to make himself a better teacher of operatives, and to have employment when the additional buildings were finished. Dr. Garnett, in his reply, says ‘an operator’s time ought to be dedicated to natural philosophy.’ ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘the School of Mechanics might perhaps be carried on by the operator.’ In Webster’s answer to Dr. Garnett the position of the School of Design at the end of September 1800 is seen.