442 ‘Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
about to publish the third edition of his System of Chemistry, he ob- 
tained Dalton’s permission to insert the sketch he had taken, before 
their neutral compounds. During the same year Dr. Wollaston read 
his famous paper on the oxalate, binoxalate, and quadroxalate of potash, 
and he commences it with a relation of what Thomson had already 
n 
r. Thomson always said, that in the absence of Dalton, Wollaston 
would have been, very soon, the discoverer of the atomic theory. 
_ These facts gradually drew the attention of chemists to Mr. Dalton’s 
views. Sir Humphry Davy, however, and others of our most eminent 
chemists, were hostile to them. In the autumn of 1807, Dr. Thomson 
had a long conversation with Mr. Davy at the Royal Institution, during 
which he attempted in vaim to convince him that there was any truth in 
the new hypothesis. A few days after, he dined with him at the Royal 
Society Club at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand. Dr. Wollaston 
was also present. After dinner every member left the tavern, except 
Dr. Wollaston, Mr. Davy, and himself, who all remained behind, and 
hich he would state to him. He then went over the principal facts, 
at the time known, respecting the salts in which the proportion of one 
” 
