1785 in science

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

Astronomy

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.

March 7–July – James Hutton's Theory of the Earth is first presented, at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

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

William Withering publishes An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses.
John Aikin publishes A Manual of Materia Medica, Containing a Brief Account of All the Simples Directed in the London and Edinburgh Dispensatories, with Their Several Preparations and the Principal Compositions into which They Enter.
A form of chainsaw is first illustrated by Scottish doctor John Aitken, for use in symphysiotomy.
London Hospital Medical College opens as England's first chartered medical school.

Lionel Lukin patents a rescue lifeboat in Great Britain.
Approximate date – American inventor Oliver Evans erects a fully automated flour mill capable of operating continuously through the pioneering use of bulk material handling devices including bucket elevators, conveyor belts, and Archimedean screws at Greenbank Mill, in New Castle County, Delaware – "He practically invented the modern science of handling materials."