Book Reading Update -- The Fontana History of Chemistry

I finished Chapter 4 which gave an account of the developments during the 19th century.  The main players presented by the author were Dalton and Berzelius.  The theme was on Dalton's extensive work on developing an "atomic theory" based on 4 assumptions and the distinction between chemical versus physical atomism.  Dalton developed his law of multiple proportions based on measurements he made and others made.  Because there was no physical evidence for a physical atom, most chemists were wary to accept this concept.  Instead, they stuck to the idea of chemical atomism as a basis for combining proportions and conceptualizing relative "atomic" or equivalent weights which Dalton came up with originally but others have supported.