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Dalton as Experimenter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Abstract

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Type
Notes and Communications
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1969

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References

1 E.g., Henry, W. C., Memoirs of the Life and Scientific Researches of John Dalton (London, 1854), p. 217Google Scholar. Freund, I., The Study of Chemical Composition (Cambridge, 1904), p. 299Google Scholar. Delacre, M., Histoire de la Chimie (Paris, 1920), pp. 239243Google Scholar. D. Papp believes that Dalton's experimental work was camouflage to conceal the fact that the sources of his atomic theory were purely theoretical (“؟Cuál es el origen gnoseológico de la teoría atomica de Dalton?”, Arch. Int. d'Hist. Sci., vi (1953), 232).Google Scholar

2 Farrar, K. R., “Dalton's Scientific Apparatus”, John Dalton and the Progress of Science, ed. Cardwell, D. S. L. (Manchester, 1968), pp. 159186.Google Scholar

3 Dalton, John, A New System of Chemical Philosophy (Manchester, vol. i, pt. 1, 1808, pt. 2, 1810Google Scholar; vol. ii, pt. 1, 1827) hereafter referred to as N.S.

4 I did this in preparing an M.Sc. Dissertation (London University, 1954) mostly, of course, by using modern values for atomic weights, etc., but sometimes repeating an experiment when this was thought likely to be enlightening.

5 Cf. Nicholson's Journal, xxix (1811), 145148.Google Scholar

6 This subject cannot be pursued further here, but I intend to develop it elsewhere.

7 Annals of Philosophy, iii (1814), 174.Google Scholar

8 Cf. N.S., ii, 24Google Scholar. Dalton classes himself among “those skilled in the more delicate chemical manipulations”.

9 Roscoe, H. E., John Dalton and the Rise of Modern Chemistry (London, 1901), p. 66.Google Scholar

10 N.S., vol. i, pt. 2, preface.Google Scholar

11 Quart. Rev., xcvi (18541855), 47.Google Scholar

12 Free Evening Lectures. South Kensington Museum, London, 1876, Lecture I. H. E. Roscoe, “On John Dalton's apparatus and what he did with it,” pp. 13, 14. Memoirs Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc., i (1805), 244.Google Scholar

13 Nothing is implied here about the correctness of Meldrum's views about the origin of Dalton's atomic theory.

14 Henry, W. C., op. cit. (1), p. 169.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 179.

16 N.S., i, 61, 62Google Scholar. Actually the list he gave was that of Wilcke and Crawford, but this differed little from his own results.

17 N.S., ii, 155157.Google Scholar

18 N.S., i, 552, 553.Google Scholar

19 Mrs. Farrar (loc. cit. (2)) speaks of the “ink-bottle” legend. Actually, apart from mentioning it at the B.A. Meeting of 1887, Roscoe used this story to inspire underprivileged Etonians condemned to the narrow specialization of a classical education.

20 For an explanation of this method, see the author's M.Sc. dissertation (London University, 1954, p. 246), quoted in Partington, J. R., A History of Chemistry (London, 1962), iii, 809, 812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 N.S., ii, 8.Google Scholar

22 This is not to assert that Richter's work contributed to the formation of Dalton's mechanico-chemical theory, which is the point at issue between Guerlac, H., “Some Daltonian Doubts”, Isis, lii (1961), 544CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and A. Thackray, “The Origin of Dalton's Chemical Atomic Theory: Daltonian Doubts Resolved”, ibid., lvii (1966), 35.

23 N.S., i, 472.Google Scholar

24 Annals of Philosophy, iii (1814), 176Google Scholar. I have avoided using Dalton's own symbols for convenience in printing.

25 Memoirs Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc., iv (1824), 64.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., iii (1819), 446.

27 Report of the British Association, iv, pt. ii (1835), 44Google Scholar. Dalton was prompted to give this information after hearing a paper on pyroxylic spirit by M. Scanlan, and it was presumably just an item from his experiments on vegetable chemistry for N.S., vol. ii, pt. ii.Google Scholar

28 Berzelius, J. J., Bref, ed. Söderbaum, H. E. (Uppsala, 19121925), vol. iii, part vii, p. 7.Google Scholar

29 Annals of Philosophy, ii (1813), 449, 450.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., iii (1814), 179, 180.

31 N.S., i, 384, 385Google Scholar. Incidentally, it is remarkable how Dalton would rely on the presence or absence of a smell as an indicator ina reaction (cf. his successful test for strength of bleaching powder, Ann. Phil., i (1813), 17)Google Scholar. Whatever was wrong with his sight there was certainly nothing wrong with his sense of smell.

32 Berzelius, , op. cit. (28), 105.Google Scholar

33 N.S., i, 300301Google Scholar. Even Roscoe seems to have missed this, for Dalton is not mentioned in those classic papers he wrote with Bunsen on this subject. Cf. Phil. Trans., cxlvii (1857), 382.Google Scholar

34 N.S., ii, 213.Google Scholar