  If Dalton's atomism was viewed as a contribution to natural philosophy in the tradition of mechanical atomism, designed to give a simple and intelligible account of the ultimate nature of the material world, then it did not have a lot going for it. It marked a decisive break with the idea that there is just one kind of matter, an assumption that extended from Democritus to Newton and beyond. If Dalton's atoms were regarded as ontologically basic, then there needed to be as many kinds of matter as there are chemical elements.  Further, atoms of each element needed to posses a range of characteristic properties to account for chemical combination as well as physical aggregation and other physical properties. As a philosophical theory of the ultimate nature of material reality, Daltonian atomism was not a serious contender and was not treated as such. A more significant issue is the status of Daltonian chemistry as an experimental science. To what extent was Daltonian chemistry borne out by and able to fruitfully guide experiment?