90 On the Atomic Theory. 



old garb, but it is the dress of the time in which it first issued 

 from my hands*. This learned writer states also, that I was 

 within a step of the doctrine in question, and wonders I had not 

 gone a little further. I can assure him that, at this present mo- 

 ment, I cannot advance a single step further: as to the doctrine 

 itself, it cannot be improved, although it may be more extensively 

 applied. In another part of his critique he seems surprised that 

 I should suffer it to lie by so long as twenty years without taking 

 any further notice of it f. He should rather be surprised at the 

 want of taste and judgement of scientific men at the time it was 

 written, and in that respect he would agree with my own feelings 

 on the occasion. 



I must not pass by unnoticed the following paragraph, taken 

 from the review of my Essay on the Atomic Theory |, &c. by 

 M. H. Gaultier de Claubry, a gentleman whom I only know by 

 his high character ;— it is as follows : " C'est ce qui rend son idee 

 plus importante, quoiqu'elie soit loin d'etre developpee comme 

 M. Dalton I'a fait depuis§." I have proved in the above work, 

 and in many papers lately published in the Philosophical Maga- 

 zine, that Mr. Dalton erred most egregiously in the proportions 

 of the elementary particles in sulphuric and sulphurous acids; but 

 particularly in those of gaseous oxide, nitrous gas, nitrous acids, 

 and nitric acid. 



I will now produce a curious specimen of errors still worse 

 than the former : — Here tliey follow, as taken from the second part 

 of his work, ^)late V. Water is represented as consisting of a 

 single ultimate particle of hydrogen united to one particle of 

 oxygen ; — so far he is right. An atom of fluoric acid consists of 

 one of hydrogen and two of oxygen ; muriatic acid of one of 

 liydrogen and three of oxygen; and oxyrauriatic acid of one of 

 hydrogen and four of oxygen. Can any thing be more absurd 

 or more wild ? Yet he pretends to give the relative weights of 

 the compound atoms, although he is quite ignorant of their con- 

 stituents. Similar errors run throughout the whole work. Hoav 

 such a writer should be mistaken for a philosopher I cannot con- 

 ceive ; and why he should be supposed to improve my theory is 

 equally inconceivable : were he to attempt to ridicule or rather 

 to caricature it, he could not accomplish his purpose more cft'ec- 

 tually. How Dr. Thomson and Dr. Henry, &c. could attempt 



* I thought until very lately that the work was out of print, there are 

 only a fevv copies to be had. 



t He will find on readinsr the preface to my Essay on Bleaching, that I 

 have not neglected my offspring as he is ])leased to call it. It could not he 

 expected that I should be continually puffing 'it off as quacks do their no- 

 strums ; 1 was confident that it would force its own way sooner or later, and 

 I was not disappointed in my expectations. 



J This work may be had of Longman and Co. § Journal de Physique. 



to 



