Pictures and albums about Dalton published in travel

Dalton’s early work embraced various disciplines, before he focused on chemistry. He read papers to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on topics such as meteorology, the nature of the Aurora Borealis, the barometer, the thermometer, the hygrometer, rainfall, clouds, dew and evaporation. He was the first to establish that rain is caused by the lowering of temperature, not a change in atmospheric pressure. Dalton also worked on gases, and formulated ‘Dalton’s Law’ of partial pressures which states that the total pressure which a mixture of gases exerts is equal to that which would be exerted by the sum of the pressures of the individual gases if occupying the same volume. Dalton went on to construct experiments showing that gases are soluble in water. He analysed the atmosphere and showed it to be constant in composition up to a height of 15,000 feet. Dalton began a series of meteorological observations in 1787, that he continued for fifty-seven years. Altogether in the time he spent it added up to 200,000 observations and measurements on the weather in the Manchester region. In 1793 Dalton moved to Manchester to teach mathematics at a dissenting academy, the New College. He took with him the proof sheets of his first book, a collection of essays on meteorologic topics based on his own observations together with those of his friends John Gough and Peter Crosthwaite. This work, Meteorological Observations and Essays, was published in 1793. His first major publication, it attracted little attention.