The expression “acid rain” was first coined in 1859 by Robert Angus, a British pharmacist working in Manchester.39 Angus, who was studying sources of air pollution, found that the rain near industrial sites tended to be more acidic than that near the coasts, where there was less pollution. He attributed this effect to an early industrial technique known as the Leblanc soda process, which was known to release hydrochloric acid. Angus’s research showed that rather than merely dissipate in the atmosphere, that acid tended to fall back to earth as acid rain. As the Laki eruption demonstrates, the
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