76 REMINISCENCES OF 



" Dalton in the position I saw it My intention, 



" when I first made the original sketch, was to bring 

 tl out a highly-finished engraving .... but P. C. 

 -" bestirred himself, and persuaded the Doctor to sit 

 " for a photograph." 



After the death of Dalton, we apparently entered 

 upon a scientific interregnum. There were still men 

 who in their youth had done good work, but who 

 were now rapidly passing into the sere and yellow 

 leaf, and their labours were things of the past ; 

 others, whose names we shall meet later, were 

 young and unformed ; and, for the moment, science 

 of the highest order was not so conspicuous in 

 Manchester as it became later trade and politics 

 chiefly absorbed the intellectual energies of the town. 

 Still we retained, even during this period of com- 

 parative repose, a very distinct social and scientific 

 circle. 



Among the chemists whom Dalton left, William 

 Henry was certainly the most prominent ; perhaps 

 deservedly so, though he owed his position in the 

 first instance to his father, Thomas Henry. He was, 

 later in life, elected Fellow of the Royal Society, and 

 the subsequent year was awarded the Copley medal. 

 But he became wealthy, and shared the fate so 

 common to men to whom that happens : social posi- 

 tion and past successes combined to establish a repu- 

 tation ; and, apparently content with this, he made 

 <no effort to keep pace with the advances chemistry 

 -was rapidly making amongst his young confederates 



