DALRYMl'LK, JOHN. 



DALTON, JOHN. 





inquired into, though nothing appears to bar* been done thereupon. 

 Two years aft-r<vard he wu appointd hydrographer to the East 

 IndU Company ; ami in 1705, when the admiralty at lant established 

 the like office, it wu given to Dalrymple, to whom it had been promised 

 when it* establishment wu first proposed nineteen years before. ThU 

 place he retained till ISOS, when the admiralty, having called for his 

 resignation on the ground of superannuation, he refused to resign and 

 wu dismissed. A month later, June 19, 1803, he died, it is said from 

 Taxation. He loft a Urge library, and rich particularly in works on 

 navigation and geography, a few of which were purchased by the 

 a liuiralty, aad the remainder were sold by auction. His own works 

 amount to about sixty in number; many of them undoubtedly 

 valuable, but some also of a merely personal and transitory character. 

 A list of them U appended to a memoir of the author, furnUhed 

 by himself, in the 'European Magazine ' for November and December 

 : : j 



DALKYMPLE, JOHN, was born in the year ISO! at Norwich, 

 where his father wu a surgeon in general practice. He studied his 

 profession under his father, in Edinburgh, and iu London. He com- 

 menced practice u a surgeon in London in 1827. During the latter 

 put of hi* career he devoted himself entirely to ocular surgery. He 

 .lied in 1852. As a surgeon-oculist he was best kuown for bis work 

 on the 'Anatomy of the Human Eye,' which was published in 1S34. 

 He wu not however known only as a surgeon, but also as a natur.ili-t 

 and accurate microscopic observer. Amongst his papers on these 

 subjects the following are the most important : ' On a peculiar struc- 

 ture in the eye of Fishes,' published in tha 'Magazine of Natural 

 History,' sect 2, vol. ii. ; ' On the Vucular Arrangement of the Capil- 



he read a paper before the Royal Society on a hitherto uudcscribed 

 infusory animalcule allied to the genus Notorvmata of Elireuberg. 

 This paper wai interesting u confirming the discovery of the sexuality 

 of the rotiferous animalcules, which had been made by BrightwclL 

 This paper was published in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' aud iu 

 1 -:.i.i he wu elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. 



Mr. Dairy mple wa one of the surgeons of the Royal London 

 Ophthalmic Hospital He wu a Fellow of the Royal College of Sur- 

 geons of England, aud in 1851 was elected a member of the council 

 of that body. 



DALTON, JOHN, wu born September 5, 1766, at the village of 

 KaglesfielJ, near Cockennouth iu Cumberland, where his father, Joseph 

 Dalton, wu the owner and cultivator of a small copyhold estate. 

 John Dalton attended a school kept by John Fletcher, a Quaker, till 

 he wu twelve yean of age. In his thirteenth year he himself began 

 to keep a school at Eagleafield, but he gave occasional assistance to his 

 father in the farming operations. In 1731, when he was fifteen, he 

 removed to Keu Ul, iu order to become an usher in the school of his 

 cousin George Bewley. Dalton, for two or three years before he left 

 Eaglesfield, bad been kindly noticed aud assisted iu Ids studies by Mr. 

 Robinson, a "^ of property ; aud a similar good fortune attended 

 him at Kendal, where he obtained the friendship of Mr. Uough, a 

 blind gentleman who wu devoted to the study of natural philosophy, 

 and who, beside* the use of his library, afforded Dalton the advantage 

 of his instruction and conversation. Dalton continued in his situation 

 of usher till 1793, when Mr. Oongh having been asked to name a 

 person fit to become professor of mathematics and natural philosophy 

 iu the New College, Mosley-street, Manchester, recommended Daltou, 

 who was accepted, nnd immediately removed to Manchester, which 

 became his place of permanent residence during the rest of his life. 

 The college wu removed to York in 1799, when Dalton withdrew from 

 it, and began to give lessons iu mathematics and natural philosophy at 

 his residence in Manchester, as well u at private seminaries. He 

 afterward* delivered public lectures, of which the first course was 

 given in the rooms of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Man- 

 chester, and conaisted of twenty lectures on experimental philosophy ; 

 he subsequently gave lectures at London, Leeds, Birmingham, aad 

 other places in England and Scotland. He had filled for several years 

 the situation* of secretary and vice-president of the Manchester 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he had become a member 

 in 17'.M; in 1817 he wu elected president, and wu re-elected every 

 year till his death. 



In 1822 Dalton paid a visit to Paris, with a single introduction, 

 which wai to Brequot the eminent watchmaker ; next day he received 

 an invitation from La Place, by whom he wu introduced to the most 

 <lurtingiii<lied scientific and literary men in Paris, lirfore this time 

 however Dalton bad published hi* most important discoveries in 

 amoral philosophy and chemistry ; bis merit* were consequently well 

 known to the French cu-mtsta, and they became more and more highly 

 appreciated in England during every succeeding year of bis life. 



Ueoyj IV. having, in 1820, given lOi) guinea* to the Royal Society 

 of London for the purchase of two gold medals to be given to piteous 

 who had moit distinguished themselves by discoveries in science, the 

 first medal wu unanimously awarded by the council to Dslton. Ha 

 attended at York in 1 -.;! the first meeting of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, and wu the object of general reipect 

 and admiration; at the second meeting at Oxford in 1832 the Univer- 



sity conferred on him the title of Doctor of Civil Law; at the third 

 meeting at Cambridge in 1833 1'iofe-sor Sedgwick, after pronouncing 

 au eulogium on his character, announced tlitt \Villi iu> IV. had granted 

 him a pension of \i>vl. a-year; at the fourth nn" : n : in Edinburgh in 

 1834 the University of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of 

 LL.H , and the Royal Society of Edinburgh elected him a memlr. 

 In 1836 his- pension wu raised to SCO/, a-year. Besides the honours 

 conferred upon Dr. Dalton duns: 'tin^* of the British 



Association, his friends in .Manchester iu 1833 nubscribed 1!00/., uiitl 

 employed Chantray to execute a statue of him in marble, which u now 

 in the entrance-hall of the Royal Manchester Institution. 



On the 10th of April 1837, Dr. Dalton, then in his seven; 

 hod a sever.- attack of paralysis, and another slight attack ou the Jlst ; 

 his right side wu paralysed, he wu deprived of the power of speak- 

 ing, and his mind appeared to be in some degree affected : after an 

 illness of some months hi* bo.lv and min their power*, and 



his voice wu restored, but his articulation wu less distinct ever 

 afterwards. On the 3rd of May ISt-l, Dr. Dalton had a third paralytic 

 stroke, which affected his right side, and increased the indi-tinctues< 

 of hU articulation. He partly recovered from the attack, and on the 



;' July attended a meeting of the council of the Man 

 Literary aud Philosophical Society, when he received a copy, cm: 

 on vellum, of a complimentary resolution passed at the annual meeting 

 of the society. Being unable to articulate distinctly, he deliv> 

 written reply. He died July 27, 1844. He had made his usual entry of 

 meteorological observations, but with some symptoms of indi-tr 

 of memory, before he retired to rest on the previous night. Th 

 inhabitants of Manchester expressed their estimation of his character 

 by a public funeral. His body lay in state in the town-ball, and was 

 visited by more than 40,000 persona in a single day. He was buriul 

 in the cemetery at Ardwick-green on the 12th of August. The fun nl 

 ceremony wag conducted with great magnificence, aud was attended 

 by a vast concourse of persons. 



Dalton, during his residence at Kendal, hod occasionally contribute I 

 to 'The Gentleman's and Lady's Diary,' and in 17S had conmicix-ed a 

 series of meteorological records ami observations, the first le-mlt- of 

 which he published soon after he went to Manchester, under the title 

 of ' Meteorological Observations and Euaya/Svo, IT'.'-L He continued 

 the habit of observing aud recording the state of the atmosphere with 

 the greatest regularity till the day before he died, taking several leeord* 

 daily; he had registered altogether upwards of 200,000 independent. 

 notices. His first essay in tha ' Transactions of the Man 

 Literary and Philosophical Society,' related to a peculiarity of his 

 own sight that of inability to distinguish certain colours and was 

 entitled ' Extraordinary Facts relating to the Vision of Colours, with 

 Observations, by Mr. John Dalton.' It was read October 111, IT:- 1, 

 and is inserted in the ' Transactions,' vol. v., part 1. This peculiarly ut 

 vision has been since very generally designated Daltonism. In l">nl 

 be published ' Elements of English Grammar,' London, Svo. 



In the 'Manchester Transactions' for 1802, part ii., there are MX 

 papers by Dalton, chiefly on subjects of meteorology, of which the 

 moat important is one called 'Experimental Essays ou the Constitution 

 of Mixed Oases; ou the Force of Steam, or Vapour from \Vat. T an, I 

 other Liquids, in different Temperatures, both in a Torrie llian 

 Vacuum aud iu Air; on Evaporation; and on the Expansion of 

 by Heat' He discusses with great acutones* the dillicult problem 

 of the e<jual diffusion throughout each other of gases of n. 

 densities; aud, besides other facts of importance, ho proves that water, 

 when it evaporates, is always converted into an elastic fluid or vapour, 

 and that the elasticity of thii vapour increases as the temperature 

 increases; at 32 of Fahrenheit it balances a column of mercury 

 about half an inch in height; at 212 it balances a column thirty 

 inches high, or ii equal to the pressure of the atmosphere. He deter- 

 mines the elasticity of vapour ut all temperatures from 32 to 212, 

 point* out the method of determining the quantity of vapour which 

 exist* at any time iu tbo atmosphere, ami determines the rate of 

 evaporation from the surface of water at all temperatures from ' 

 .1- . The principles laid down in these essays have been of the 

 highest importance to chemists in their investigations respecting the 

 specific gravity of gases, and have enabled them to solve many 

 interesting problems. 



Dalton began to work out his grand discovery of the atomic t 

 in 1803; in August 1SOI he explained it distinctly and fully to Dr. 

 Thomas Thomson, who wu then on a short visit t.) Manchenter ; he 

 touched upon it in a lecture before the Royal Institution of London in 

 1804, and subsequently in lecture* at Manchester, Kdinlmr,: 

 Glasgow ; but Dr. Thomson wu the first to publish n xhort cket.-h of 

 it in 1 107, iu the third edition of his 'System of Chemistry.' K 

 l> lUton published 'A New System of Chemical Phllosophj,' 8vo, 

 vol. i. In the first chapter he tr. ats of heat; iu the second, of the 

 constitution of bodies, iu which his chief object is to oppose the 

 peculiar notion* respecting elastic fluids which had been advanced by 

 Berthollet and were supported by Dr. Murray of Edinburgh ; in tbe 

 third chapter, which occupies only a few pages, he gives the outline of 

 the atomic theory. In a plate at the end of the volume he gives the 

 symbols and atomic weights of 37 bodies, 20 of which were then 

 considered simple, and the 17 others compound. In the second 

 volume of his ' New System of Chemical Philosophy,' published in 



