“A pure elastic fluid is one the constituent particles of which are all alike, or in no way distinguishable. Steam, or aqueous vapour, hydrogenous gas, oxygenous gas… and several others are of this kind. …Whatever …may be the shape or figure of the solid atom abstractedly, when surrounded by such an atmosphere it must be globular; but as all the globules in any small given volume are subject to the same pressure, they must be equal in bulk, and will therefore be arranged in horizontal strata, like a pile of shot.”
Source: A New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808), Ch. II. On the Constitution of Bodies, Sect. 1. On the Constitution of Pure Elastic Fluids
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John Dalton 6
English chemist, meteorologist and physicist 1766–1844Related quotes
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They must in quantity of Matter all agree.”
'The weight of Atomes', in The Atomic Poems of Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, from her Poems, and Fancies, 1653, an electronic edition. Edited with an introduction by Leigh Tillman Partington. http://womenwriters.digitalscholarship.emory.edu/toc.php?id=atomic
Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 11, The Message on the Tombstone, The meaning of entropy, p. 97-98

A New System of Chemical Philosophy, Part I http://books.google.com/books?id=Wp7QAAAAMAAJ (1808) as quoted by Richard Reeves, A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2008)