HISTOKY OF THE ATOMIC THEORY. 27 



CHAPTER II. 



HIS EPOCH OF GREATEST FERTILITY. 



The work on meteorology was published in September, 1793. 

 Dalton had come to Manchester in the spring of that year. 

 He was now twenty-seven years of age. The removal to an 

 active town seems to have satisfied his cravings for a larger 

 sphere of labour which were forcing him from his attachment 

 to his neighbourhood. He was self-taught, a raw countryman, 

 in many respects rather rough in his acquired habits, although 

 of a naturally gentle disposition. Such a distance from active 

 life would have made many men idle, such a sudden entrance 

 into it has often the same effect on others. Neither seemed 

 to affect him, there was little change of habit, he was still in 

 the streets of Manchester as on the hills of Cumberland, 

 the active observer and thinker. On October 3rd, 1794, 

 he first appears as a member of the Literary and Philoso- 

 phical Society of Manchester, having been proposed by 

 Thomas Henry, Dr. Percival, and Robert Owen, the veteran 

 enthusiast who would willingly compel all mankind to be 

 reformed by his simple formula. On the 3 1st, he read his 

 first paper to the society, an event to him of great import- 

 ance, greatly influencing all his future life, as he soon after 

 became the representative of that body, continuing so for 

 the remainder of his life. 



This paper was entitled " Extraordinary Facts relating to 

 the Vision of Colours."* He says there, p. 30, 



" It may be proper to observe, that I am shortsighted. 

 Concave glasses of about five inches focus suit me best. I 

 can see distinctly at a proper distance; and am seldom hurt by 

 too much or too little light; nor yet with long application." 



• Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of Manchester. Vol. V., p 28. 



