November ijth, 1917] PROCEEDINGS. iii. 



on his offering to correct them. For many years of his life 

 he maintained himself, in Manchester, by school teaching, but 

 this laborious, if honourable, occupation did not hinder him 

 from- indulging in the most abstruse and far reaching specu- 

 lations and researches ; the result being that the Manchester 

 schoolmaster, alone and unassisted, made himself the father 

 of modern chemistry— that is if chemistry is one of the exact 

 sciences and not a succession of independent experiments. 

 How the idea of the Atomic Theory first presented itself to 

 his mind it would be interesting to know, but we know very 

 little of it. All we hear is, that it occurred to him as required, 

 in order to explain certain remarkable phases of matter, 

 which combines in some proportions and not in others. 

 Once that idea had taken hold of his mind, he never aban- 

 doned it till he had worked it out. The natural gases 

 presented the readiest mode of investigation ; so he is 

 represented as collecting marsh-fire gas, one of the natural and 

 primitive forms of gas. The mode of getting it is the usual 

 one of stirring up the mud of a stagnant pond, while an assis- 

 tant (in this case a farmer's boy) catches the bubbles, as they 

 rise, in a wide-mouthed bottle, having a saucer ready to close 

 up the mouth under the water when the bottle is full. A 

 group of children are watching him, and the eldest, who has 

 charge of them, is telling the little boy who is bent on 

 catching sticklebacks that ' Mr. Dalton is catching Jack o' 

 Lanterns ' — marsh-fire gas being, when on fire, the substance 

 the Will o'the Wisp is composed of .... " 



Hon. Professor W. Boyd Dawkins, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S., read a 

 paper entitled : — " The Organisation of Museums and Galleries 

 of Art and Technology in Manchester." 



This paper is printed in full in the Memoirs. 



General Meeting, November 13th, 191 7. 



The President, 

 Mr. William Thomson, F.R.S.E., F.C.S., F.I.C., in the Chair. 



Dr. Geoffrey Martin, Ph.D., F.I.C., F.C.S., Head of the 

 Research Department of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, Ltd. ; 

 Mr. William Heap Holland, Spinner, The Cottage, Mottram Road, 

 Alderley Edge, ; and Miss Winifred Crompton, Assistant Keeper in 

 Egyptology, The Manchester Museum, The University, Manchester ; 

 were elected Ordinary Members of the Society. 



