Abstract
IN the review of “A New View of the Origin of Dalton's Atomic Theory,” published in your issue of April 16, your reviewer, in summing up the evidence as to the origin of the atomic theory, makes an omission of such importance that it cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. He attaches great weight to Thomson's statement that in 1804 Dalton himself informed him “that the atomic theory first occurred to him during his investigations of olefiant gas and carburetted hydrogen gas.” Now these researches, as pointed out by your reviewer, were begun in the summer of 1804, a date which is assigned to them by Dalton himself, and is confirmed by the entries in his laboratory note-books of the time; so that Thomson's statement amounts to saying that the atomic theory first occurred to Dalton in the summer of 1804. This conclusion appears to us to be entirely discredited by the fact that several detailed tables of atomic weights and lists of atomic symbols, which are dated September 1803, occur in Dalton's laboratory note-books, one of these tables being reproduced in facsimile at p. 28 of the work under review, but not referred to by your reviewer.
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THE AUTHORS. Dalton's Atomic Theory. Nature 54, 28 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054028c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054028c0
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