Excerpt from Foundations of the Molecular Theory
The papers here reprinted in chronological order serve to exhibit the historical development of the idea of a connection existing between the number of particles in different gases and the volume the occupy.
It will be seen that Dalton from the first entertains the notion that equal volumes of different gases may contain the same number of ultimate particles at equal temperature and pressure, but that he is legitimately forced to reject this assumption, - conceiving no distinction between the atom and the molecule of an element. Gay-Lussac's important experimental work on the combining volumes of gases then shows the necessity of a simple relation between the ultimate particles of gases and their volumes, although he does not point this out in his paper. Dalton, however, perceives the necessity, and characteristically concludes by doubting the accuracy of Gay-Lussac's experiments. Avogadro, finally, accepts both Dalton's theory and Gay-Lussac's data, and teaches how to reconcile them by distinguishing between the atom and the molecule of an elementary gas.
It has not been thought necessary to reprint the letter of Ampere to Berthollet (Annales de Chimie, 90, 43-86, 1814), since that paper contains no advance on the views of Avogadro published three years earlier, its author simply drawing the same conclusions from the same premises.
The English version of the French originals will probably be found more faithful than elegant, especially so in the case of Avogadro's paper, where the French is always clumsy and occasionally obscure.
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