1815.) Extract of a Letter from Berzelius to Gilbert. 49 
friend as possessing any weight —and there is no general canon with 
respect to the multiples of proportions in which different bedies 
combine,” &c. 
My experiments upon the constant and definite proportions 
which exist in compounds I have been at some pains to get trans- 
lated into English and published in Great Britain. _ However, sufli- 
cient attention has not yet been paid to them in that country. Ina 
treatise upon the Daltonian theory of chemical proportions, Dr. 
Thomson has given the whole merit to Dalton. My laws are only 
mentioned to be refuted ; and when they do not immediately follow 
from Dalton’s atomic doctrine, to be discarded without further 
proof. The consequence is, that my experiments have only been 
handled in a very slight manner. A friend has communicated to 
me from London some preliminary information respecting Wollas- 
ton’s treatise on Chemical Equivalents, in which he has employed a 
sliding rule for the discovery of the requisite proportions. He adds, 
“ ] have the pleasure to be able to say that Dr. Wollaston has 
therein admitted the accuracy of your numerous labours.” But this 
excellent philosopher, of whose friendship I am proud, has not 
named me. At present being uncertain how the oxalates are com- 
bined, he has made some experiments respecting them; and my 
friend says, “I have the satisfaction to find that his experiments 
agree with yours.’—Lately attempts have been made to show that 
Higgins was the discoverer of the atomic theory, and a dispute on 
the subject has arisen between Dalton and Higgins. Dr. Thomson 
says, that even if the atomic doctrine had escaped Dalton, it would 
have been discovered by other English philosophers ; and after- 
wards, in order to correct the improper use of the word English, he 
explains himself, by informing us that he alluded to Dr. Wollaston. 
We may see in this example how difficult it is in England to esti- 
mate foreigners correctly.* You need not, therefore, be surprised 
that your Annals are not better known in England. When I was 
in that country I allowed some numbers of your Annals to come 
from Sweden, that I might be able to get my papers translated out 
of them. However, had not Dr, Thomas Young, Foreign Secre- 
tary of the Royal Society, undertaken the translation out of friend- 
ship for me, 1 should have found it difficult to meet with a single 
chemist in the whole country who could have translated the papers 
in question. Mr. Accum and Mr. Brande are Germans by birth.— 
You will receive from me in a short time a second and third ap- 
pendix to my experiments on the definite proportions in which bo- 
dies combine. 
* That novelty of matter has more share in this than the circumstance of 
foreigner appears to me evident, among Other things, from Dalton’s vindication of 
his atomic doctrine, which does not appear groundless, and from Mr, Mier’s de- 
terminations respecting azotic gas, with both of which L shall shortly make my 
readers acquainted, The former terminates as follows: * Notwithstanding this, 
whatever may come from the pen of Berzelius on the subject will, no doubt, be 
worthy the attention of the cliemical world.”—Gitserr, 
Vox. VI. N° I. D 
