LECTURE ON DALTON 399 



and to this faculty he himself ascribes his success in life. He 

 was fond of making meteorological observations ; he began 

 them early in life and continued them (from 1787) for more 

 than half a century, day by day, at the same hour, until the 

 very evening before his death, in 1844, making altogether no 

 less than 200,000 observations. 



When he was fifteen he left his native village for ever to 

 join his brother, who had established a school in Kendal. 

 His outfit was not a luxurious one. For the first time he 

 saw, in a Cockermouth shop, an umbrella, and bought one, 

 thinking, as he said, that "an article of the kind was 

 becoming a gentleman ! " So, with a bundle of underclothes 

 in one hand and his umbrella in the other, John started for 

 his walk of forty miles to Kendal, and this was nothing to 

 the young stalwart boy. Indeed, up to the last almost, 

 Dalton was a sturdy walker " Why, John, what are thy legs 

 made of," said, in after years, one of his companions on a 

 walking tour, " I cannot keep pace with thee." 



Passing through lakeland, which throughout his life was 

 his happy hunting ground, he arrived at Kendal. Here he 

 found a community of 5,000 souls, many of them Quakers, 

 driving a flourishing trade in homespuns, and Kendal green, 

 the packs being sent to Liverpool by hundreds of horses, 

 for of coaches, let alone railroads, in those days there were 

 none. 



Here he kept school for twelve years with his brother. 

 They did not make their fortunes. The fee charged was 

 IDS. 6d. per quarter, and so hard up were the brothers that 

 they at one time had to borrow a few pounds from their poor 

 parents to keep things going. But whilst he was employed 

 in teaching the " young idea how to shoot," Dalton was also 

 busily engaged in self-improvement. Not a minute was lost ; 

 and by degrees, by hard and unremitting toil, he became a 

 good mathematician and was acquainted with the works and 

 writings not only of Newton, and of our other great English 

 men of science, but also with what continental philosophers 

 thought and did, and thus he laid the foundation of his future 

 greatness. 



In 1793 Dalton came to Manchester as teacher in the 

 Manchester Academy. He got 80 for the session of nine 

 months, out of which he had to pay 27 los. for board and 

 lodging, so that his income was i per week, a sum which, 

 however small it may seem to us in these degenerate days, 

 was to Dalton more than he expected and more than he had 

 ever before received. After holding this post of College 



