389 



LIFE OF D ALTON ATOMIC THEOKY.* 



[QUARTERLY KEVIEW, No. 291.] 



WE place these volumes in conjunction the first a bio- 

 graphy, the second an essay on one of the highest 

 topics of natural science because the fame of Dalton 

 mainly rests on the discoveries by which he defined and illus- 

 trated that theory which forms the subject of Dr. Daubeny's 

 work. A dedication of this second edition to the memory 

 of Dalton then recently deceased justly and eloquently 

 describes those researches in atomic chemistry which, while 

 wonderfully enlarging the domains of the science, and giving 

 exactitude to all its conclusions, have led to more profound 

 views of the great laws by which matter is governed in the 

 mutual actions and combinations of its ultimate component 

 parts. Here, on this wide field of atomic theory, the bold' 



* 1. Memoirs of the Life and Scientific Researches of John Dalton, Hon. 

 D.C.L. Oxford, LL.D. Edinburgh, F.E.S., Foreign Associate of the Academy of 

 Sciences, Paris, $c. By William Charles Henry, M.D., F.E.S. 8vo. London, 

 1854. 



2. An Introduction to the Atomic Theory. By Charles Daubeny, M.D., 

 F.K.S., &c., Professor of Chemistry and of Botany in the University of Oxford. 

 2nd Edition. Oxford, 1851. 



In the first Article of this volume I have spoken of the Atomic Theory and 

 doctrine of definite proportions in some detail ; but as one illustration only of 

 the progress and spirit of physical science at large. The interest of the subject, 

 however, is such that I trust to be excused for reprinting the present article ; 

 narrating the progress of the discovery, and the life of the man to whom it is 

 chiefly due. It forms also an introduction to the succeeding article, on Modern 

 Chemistry, to every part of which this discovery is so closely related. 



