The year 1785 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

Dunsink Observatory established near Dublin.[1]

Aviation

January 7 - Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.
January 19 – Richard Crosbie successfully flies in a hot air balloon across Dublin, the first ascent in Ireland.

Biology

Antoine François and Étienne Louis Geoffroy publish Entomologia Parisiensis, sive, Catalogus insectorum quae in agro Parisiensi reperiuntur ....
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, publishes Botanical Tables, containing the different families of British plants.

Earth sciences

March–July - James Hutton's Theory of the Earth is first presented, at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.[2]

Exploration

André Michaux is sent by the French government to North America to look for new plants.

Mathematics

The Marquis de Condorcet publishes Essai sur l'application de l'analyse á la probabilité des décisions rendues á la pluralité des voix including his voting paradox, the Condorcet method of voting and his jury theorem.

Medicine

William Withering publishes An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses.

Awards

Copley Medal: William Roy

Births

January 15 - William Prout, chemist (died 1850)

12 February 1785 Birth of Pierre Louis Dulong
February 26 - Anna Sundström, chemist (died 1871)
March 22 - Adam Sedgwick, geologist (died 1873)
April 26 - John James Audubon, naturalist, illustrator (died 1851)
July 6 - William Jackson Hooker, botanist (died 1865)

Deaths

January 23 - Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician (b. c.1717)
June 2 - Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, French mathematician (b. 1713)
November 16 - Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, Swedish chemist and mineralogist (b. 1709)
December 12 - Edmé-Louis Daubenton, French naturalist (b. 1730)
Pierre Le Roy, French clockmaker (b. 1717)

References

^ Alexander Thom (1850). Thom's Irish Almanac and Official Directory (7th ed.). p. 258. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
^ Hutton, James (1788). "Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe". Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1 (2): 209–304. Retrieved 2011-10-12.