domination was over. The question was with regard to the authorship of a very disgraceful article in the Journal recently, in which, under the pretence of reviewing the annual almanacs of two weekly photographic journals, occasion was taken to laud the editor and contributors of the one with most fulsome praise, and to speak with pitying contempt of the other, characterising it as a poor plagiarism of the former, and its contributors as the dii minores of photography. Strong attempts were made by members of the council to induce Dr. Diamond to give up the name of the writer of this scandalous, and most untruthful article, but in vain; he declared that he held himself alone responsible, and took any blame that accrued. A very unusual energy was shown in the emphatic manner in which different members expressed their objections to the mean, contemptible manner of striking, the aggressor keeping in safe obscurity. Nothing more of the kind will be permitted; and as the writer is probably the same who furnished an equally scandalous and untruthful article last year, he will have to favour another publication in future." W. H. C.-Mr. Condy's fluid is, we find, a solution of very impure permanganate of soda. W. C. R.-Your queries have rather taken us by surprise. It is evident you are the veriest novice in the "black art," a d it is quite impossible for us to answer your questions without a great deal more information as to your requirements than is contained in your letter. If you will take the trouble of addressing a note, containing a more detailed statement, to George Dawson, M.A., Lecturer on Photography, King's College, London, he has kindly undertaken to help you. J. MCLAREN-We know nothing of the person you inquire about. ANTI-CYANIDE.--We are not in th habit of reading advertisements in our own or other periodicals, and were not aware, till you informed us, that Mr. Cleaver has given no address at which his photographic soap may be obtained. The soap assuredly contains no cyanide, and is very efficient for removing recent silver stains from the skin. We have not tried it on old tains. SIGMA.-1. We have never used the paper, and know no one who has done so. 2. Tone in a weaker bath. 3. The "art" photographs you mention are amongst the earliest and most inartistic we ever saw, and the "authority you quote is, in all such matters, a very unreliable guide. We don't think any respectable artist would endure the agony of drawing from them, and believe even the Graphotype Company's brushers and routers" would rise to a man, and protest against their being graphotyped. 4. Use glacial acetic acid. Thanks for your kind expressions and complimentary opinions JAMES C.-We do not remember the address of Mr. John Hawke, although we remember seeing and admiring a collection of his photographs some few years since. Our volume will be complete at the end of the year. COPYIST.-Use old iodised collodion. R. S.-Please do not send stamped envelope gain. We really connot reply privately to strangers; our time is too fully occupied. 1. See report of South London Society in our last. 2. We shall shortly publish a paper on the subject. S. L.-When starch is used for windows, it has the disadvantage of collecting the dust and blacks with which our London atmosphere is pregnant ; these adhere tightly, and can only be removed with the starch. See Mr. Leake's article in our present issue. LUX.-We should be very glad to examine the series of views you speak of. J. GRAHAM sends us a very amusing article, called "The Curiosities of Photographic Literature," one feature of which is, a collection of quoted paragraphs arranged side by side, all by the same writer, and from the same journal, one row speaking most disparagingly of well known gentlemen, and of certain processes, &c., and the other row lauding them in the same extravagant way. The contrast is remarkable, and the rapid and extraordinary change of opinion they illustrate appears truly unaccountable. In reply-1. There are reasons why we should not publish this cleverly-written paper, but we hope Mr. Graham will allow the manuscript to remain in our possession as a never-failing source of amusement for ourselves, and our photographic friends. 2. The editor's querulous complaint is a very nonsensical one. 3. If photo Mr. J. C. Browne, in the Philadelphia Photographer, says:-" :-" Although much has been written on the subject of dark tents for photographic use, I wish, to mention what I consider by far the simplest, cheapest, most portable, and easily arranged of all the different forms used to assist the outdoor photographer in his work. It is nothing more than a jointed tripod, covered with some black material, placing the bath and chemicals on the ground, and developing in a tin or rubber dish, or on the ground if but few negatives are to be taken. My tripod is an artist's easel, four feet eleven inches high, hinged with a springjoint, weighing two pounds. The cover is made of one thickness of black muslin, and one of the best quality orange silesia (used for window-curtains); weight, four pounds; wrapping together into a very small compass. This tent can be put up and the folds fastened down in three minutes; less time being occupied in taking down. Light can be admitted through a window in the covering, if preferred, but I always use a small burning-fluid lamp, as I can regulate it more easily than a window, holding it under the plate when developing. The entire cost of such a tent will not be more than fifteen or eigh-graphic readers generally are not tired of the interminable repetition involved teen dollars, probably less. My friend, Mr. Hugh Davids, after having experimented with various kinds of patented tents ("warranted portable"), has returned to, and now uses, the old form of conical tent, similar to the one described above. The dimensions of Mr. David s tent are-height of tripod, six feet six inches; diameter of tent, when spread, five feet seven inches. I have learned that Mr. Braun, of Dornach, France, who stands pre-eminent as the photographer of the Swiss Alps, uses a conical tent somewhat similar to that described in the above communication." To Correspondents. RECEIVED." Chapters on 'Dodges,'" by A. H. Wall. "A Practical Note on the Use of Sel Clement," by Aliquis. "Photography and the Magic Lantern." by E. B. Fennessy. "Oa Washing Machines," by J. Shearer, "Pencil Jottings," by R. A. Seymour. The latter we are unable to insert, in consequence of an accident in preparing the graphotype block. "Art Education," the conclusion of "Orie tal Photogr phy," "Report of the Camera Club, and some other articles, are again kept out for want of space. A REAL MARTYR.- Such matters are quite out of our province. Apply to a medical man, who will doubtless trace all your symptoms to indigestion. We don't profess to give medical advice. R. HOLTON. We cannot make a y use of the information you send us, nor do we think it advisable to publish your letter, as you suggest. The other gentleman you name will supply you with our journal as readily a with either of its contemporaries. L. FORDOUN. You have surely not read the details of the collodi albumen The free nitrate of silver must be washed off the plate before applyprocess. ing the albumen. There are m ny modifications of the colle dio-albume process Perhaps the most certain in results of all is that published by Mr. Mudd. The only drawback is its extreme slowness in receiving an actinic impression. M. S.-John Frederick Goddard was credited at the time with introducing bromine into photographic use. His lite was devoted to scientific pursuits. He received the Society of Arts medal for apparatus to aid his investigation of polarised light, and was one o! the earliest lecturers on the oxyhydrogen microscope, on photography, &c. At the time the appeal was issued, fin 1863, one of the trustees wrote as follows: "This worthy man is in want! He is old and frail; he has well-nigh reached the Psalmist's limit of threescore years and ten,' and he is in penury-literally without means, and is living on charity." OPERA-GLASS CAMERA APPARATUS. "Pinhole," "E. B." "W. M." “T. Dalton."-This apparatus is now in course of construction by Mr. T. Ross, from whom all particulars as to price, &c., my be obtained. See our advertisement columns. in such articles, we must confess that we are There is plenty left ursaid, which requires attention, with ut lazily re-echoing the dying echoes of ancient papers. -"1st. It is a bad plan to soak glass plates for a long time, as you have done, in common carb nate of soda. Some kinds of glass are soluble in alkaline solutions, as yours seem to have been. The roughnesses on the surface you will probably find to be indentations. If otherw se, then the effect is probably due to hard water, containing sulphate of lime. In either case your best mode of procedure is to smash up your damaged glasses, and thus save yourself future annoyance from them. 2nd. Your second query is a very comprehensive one, which we cannot answer in detail. If, as an amateur, you only want one lens for universal work, Ross's No. 1 triplet will suit your purpose. It is a very comprehensive sort of lens. 3rd. There should be no difference in the colour of crystals of pure protosulphate of iron. This salt, when kept in a ry, stoppered, or corked bottle, should neither "effloresce nor become deliquescent." Avoid purchasing either. "SPE VIVO."-Thanks for your kind note -The papers you name would be very acceptable. Could the tour be illustrated from your hotographs? If you have thrown down the silver from your printing bath as a carbonate of that metal, the bulk of the precipitate must dissolve in dilute nitric acid. All will probably not dissolve, because an old printing bath contains a great deal of organic matter. You have selected a very bad way of economising an old silver solution, because carbonate of silver is soluble, to some extent, in water, and therefore by repe ted washi gs much waste is incurred Better by far precipitate the silver as a chloride, and have it reduced to the metallic state in the usual way. E. B. FENNESSY says: "All subscribers to the good old Photographie Notes who are re ders of its illustrated successor, will recollect hearing about the long expected specimen portrait of its editor, which, owing to some disappointment on Mr. Woodbury's part, did not appear. Now, as many of us have never seen a photo-relief picture, and as we may inter from Mr. Dawson's interes.ing and graphic description that the process is one of great and increasing importan e, would it not be well and generally agreeable to those readers to institute a subscription-say a shilling each, and when a sufficient sum is collected, to solicit Mr. Sutton to send his negative for printing and distribution to Mr. Lisderi. Mr. Sutton's portrait could interest us a year ago, and it is no less gratifying to us now. Every person who appreciates photography must value this souvenir of a man who has done much for the art, and whose heart and character, as apparent from his writi gs, is adorned with that earnest enthusiasm, without which nothing great or excellent can be achieved; and replete with that brilliant sense of honour, witty genius, firmness, and truth, the sure idea of a lofty and virtuous habit of thought." THOS. F.-Thanks for your kind promise. E. D.-Some little time since Breeze's "Moonlight Scenes were on sale at the Crystal Palace, where they may probably still be procured. AUSTRALIAN. -A condensing lens, similar to that used for Woodward's Solar Camera, could most likely be obtained either from Ross, the optician, from Solomon, or frem Cox. See advertisen.ent columns. W. MYERS." A Photographic Ramble in Guernsey" would be acceptable. Thanks for your kindness. Wil write in a few days. G. I. TEAR.-Thanks for pho:o, which we shall use. LONDON, APRIL 3rd, 1868. tages, can but imitate, and that, as a rule, without catching the real grace of the line. The nearly savage Egyptian potter will turn out with his rude appliances a constant FEELING versus SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION IN ART. succession of earthen vessels constantly varying in shape, BY LEMON H. MICHAEL. HERE is, just at present, a great outcry about our inferiority in art to the continental nations, and a general tendency to ascribe this to a want of some proper system of art education in the country, and this has mainly given rise to the few thoughts I have to offer to you. The perfect theory of the relation of art and education would appear to be, that they should ever mutually assist and improve each other, that the greater the general state of education, the higher should be the quality of the accompanying art. That art, on the other hand, as it progressed, should, at every step, forward and assist educa tion, so that the two, like two loving sisters, ever hand in hand, should walk the world, blessing and elevating as they went; that every mutual advance should be a help to each other and mankind. No doubt this great theory is not only beautiful, but true; yet I think it is not so undeviatingly or completely so as we might at first imagine or wish; but what the progress of either is, and must be ever, a blessing to all, and, to a certain degree, coexistent, but I cannot resist the conviction that they are also often seen moving independently of each other, and that art has often stood, to some extent, unsupported by her sister goddess. Although it may at once be conceded that a certain amount of education and civilisation is necessary for a high development of art, I do not think it has always followed that the highest state of education has been accompanied with the highest art development, or that even, taking the history of the same country, its most educated times have always been those in which art has reached its culminating point. not The Greek, when he erected those incomparable structures which remain, to our own time, unsurpassed models of grace and majesty, was, after all, compared with ourselves, but poorly educated, and half civilised. Science was still in its elementary stages; the learned men, great as they were, would scarcely have been considered learned now, and the knowledge of the masses, even at Athens, in all its glory, must have been far behind the average know. ledge of our times; yet their sculpture remains to this day unapproached, and their architecture has, at least, never been surpassed in its completeness. Yet their knowledge of anatomy must have been small indeed, when they executed figures matchless for correctness and beauty of form and action, and when with the nicest exactitude they suited the curves of their lines to correct optical illusion, their knowledge of optical science must have been far behind our own. They worked, in a great measure, from their marvellous art instinct, their keen observation, and delicate appreciation of beauty. That art is, to some degree, an instinct independent of education, it would be impossible to deny. The weaving of the mats of savage nations, the carving of the paddles and other articles produced by people of a very low, if not actually the lowest, type of civilisation, such as the New Zealander, very often display an artistic feeling, which is far from despicable; indeed, I have seen many of the latter which, as regards the arrangement of geometrical line and management, deserve, or seem to me to deserve, a high rank; and indeed this feeling for the arrangement of elaborate line ornament seems to me rather characteristic of a more or less savage state of existence, and I certainly think, generally speaking, that the highest type of ornamental art has been, and still is, produced by people far from the highest type of education or civilisation. The half-civilised Hindoo, or the still less civilised workmen on the banks of the Nile, will manufacture articles which the best workmen of Europe, with all their advan VOL I-No. 9. which, if not of the highest class of form, yet are all more or less beautiful, many of them exceedingly so, and invariably possessing a certain artistic feeling of line, which is, in very truth, the art instinct. This rude savage tion, working for the most wretched remuneration, barely has in him a spark of the great fire, and without educasufficient to keep life and soul together, even there he will produce forms which our workmen, highly trained and civilised, can but copy clumsily, losing almost existed in the prototype. I know it is said that this man invariably in the process that subtile art essence which works from tradition and special habit; but that seems to me quite insufficient to account for the difference ; in every way his advantages are enormously inferior to those of his European followers. The Hindoo again, whose feeling for art ornament is of a still more elegant and complete type, is still comparatively a savage; he has no great schools of art; no Government schools of design; beauty which we, with our advantages, can but imitate; and yet he can arrange his line and draw his curve with a blend together his colours with an almost unfailing feeling of beauty and fitness, far beyond the power of the most civilised natives of the West, who take his works and set in vain. At the last great meeting of all the triumphs of them up on high as models which they all strive to copy, and European art, in the French capital, what has been the conclusion come to by all the best judges who have written on the subject?-why, that these half-tutored men are still far before us, and that the nearer we approach their type the higher we are getting, and that we must thus go back humbly to the earliest sources, and bow the pride of our intellects and science at the feet of these unlettered guides. Yes, I think there can be no doubt that art and art feeling is, to a certain extent, an instinct-a marvellous gift of the great and good God, himself the greatest artist of all, who has filled the would around us with endless and lovely teaching, if we will but look for it, and planted on every side in His great art school, endless art models beyond the beauty of any mortal production, always fresh and always ready for those who will study in it. This art instinct, this innate feeling for beauty and capability of producing it, is, I repeat, a gift from on high; and where it has no existence, not all the training and puffing in the world can make a blaze in the absence of that tiny spark. It is a part of that great fire that has warmed the hearts of so many, sometimes a mere spark indeed, sometimes a mighty blaze; a part of the same instinct that taught the Greek--half a savage even then-to rear his matchless temples and carve those sculptures, triumphs that remain, even in their fragments, the envy and the model of all who behold them; still supreme, after the lapse of ages and the march of civilisation; a part of the same instinct that enabled the Egyptian to impress the seal of grandeur on his mighty masses, and to leave the spirit of majesty on his seated gods, grand even in their clumsiness of form; a part of the same spirit that enabled the painters of old to execute works that hold us all entranced; that shows its splendour in the Sistine Chapel or runs graceful riot in the Vatican-that has inspired, in short, every real work of art, however great or however small, that has ever been produced—a touch of that spirit which man can no more give than he can breathe life into a graven image. You may teach, and you may polish, you may make a mechanism, but you cannot make an artist. You may train the hand, you may train the eye, you may give the fingers certainty and skill till they work like a machine, but if the original spark be not there, you will never make an artist, however perfect the mechanism. The life and soul will be wanting, and you can no more insert it than you can galvanise a dead creature into life; a ghastly mockery you may make, but the reality-no! I would not be understood to mean by these remarks that all teaching is useless-far, very far, from it; but I do mean that it will not do everything. There is a great outery just at present that all we want is teaching, systematic teaching, to enable us to equal or excel our continental rivals in art. Now, I do not quite believe this. If we really are inferior to them, which must not be altogether taken for granted, I believe it must be rather traceable to some defect in our national organisation than to our want of instruction. No doubt teaching will do much, but there is much that it will not do; and indeed I am afraid that in some measure our want of national art teaching is rather an effect than a cause. If the public considered these matters as essential as they do in the great con-. tinental nations, we should have had the teaching long ago. WET AND DRY PLATE EXPERIMENTS. IN resuming my account of our long trip into the country to try the wet v. dry plate question, I shall here confine myself to a description of the practical data on which I have founded the summary given at the end of this article. But I wish it to be understood, that I do not consider the deductions I have made so reliable or satisfactory as they would have been if the experiments had been made in more favourable weather, nor so complete as I could have wished, because of the accident which, at an early part of the day, deprived my wet friend of the use of his camera. The weather, as I stated in my last communication, was extremely unpropitious for out-of-door photography. A violent gale of wind, a leaden sky, and occasional showers of hailstones, are not exactly the sort of assistants one likes to meet with in his photographic attempts on trees and such like objects. Yet, by judiciously "dodging," so far as we could, all these impedimenta, I am surprised, on looking at the negatives, and the prints from them, to see the very interesting and, in at least half the cases, extremely satisfactory results. The plates I exposed and developed were as under :No. 1. By the Liverpool Dry Plate Company (tannin). 2. Russell's quick process (tannin). 3. Norris's rapid plate (preparation a secret). 4. Collodio albumen (Mudd's method). 5. Iodide and bromide, equal parts, bath 45 grs. (tan). 6. Cllodio-albumen, Fothergill new process. 7. Russell's quick process (tannin and honey). 8. Same as No. 1. 9. Same as No. 3. No. 1. At the hour of the day (9.15 a.m.) at which this plate was exposed, the lowering dark clouds, which I spoke of in my last communication, had not yet entirely overcast the sky; in consequence, the light was not altogether bad, nor had the wind risen to anything like the tempestuous character which it afterwards assumed. My wet plate brother, Mr. Collings, judging from the appearance of the image on the ground glass, gave an exposure of two minutes and a half on a group of gnarled beech-trunks, and rushed to the van to develop. Within two minutes I heard a sepulchral shout from the cave," All right, exposure firstrate." I therefore exposed my No. 1 for seven minutes. This was done on the faith of the instructions contained in the printed statement issued by the Liverpool Company, viz., to give three times the exposure required for a good wet plate. The exposure turned out to be exactly correct. It was developed of course by the alkaline method, and the negative, although a shade over-developed, was excellent, and quite equal to Mr. Collings's wet one. It is important to bear in mind that the focal lengths of our lenses were as nearly as possible the same, and that the diaphragms, which were in each case small, were adjusted for equal illumination in both our cameras. No. 2 was immediately afterwards exposed for two minutes and a half (the same time as the wet plate) on the same object, without altering the camera. But by this time the wind was rising, and blowing in fitful and angry gusts against the camera, placed in a very exposed situation, at the easternmost point of the "Beeches." In consequence, the camera shifted slightly during the exposure, and doubled the image. On development by the alkaline method, the image, although considerably blurred, proved a sensitiveness and efficiency in these Russell plates equal in every respect to wet collodion. No. 3. By the time we had pitched our cameras side by side against a fine old trunk, and Mr. Collings's second wet plate was ready, the light had dimmed so, that nothing but the high lights were visible on the ground glass with the small stops we were using. We then had recourse to the usual expedient of focussing as well as we could with a large diaphragm, and then turning on our smaller stop 33. Mr. Collings gave five minutes' exposure to his wet plate, and I did the same to a "Norris" rapid dry Both were correctly judged, and yielded excellent negatives, barring some outlying boughs and twigs that would, of course, wave about in the fierce wind. one. This dry plate was developed with iron, but not by the method laid down in Dr. Norris's instructions for development. In some preliminary trials with these plates I had followed very closely his printed instructions, and found them wanting in many essentials. I do not now, therefore, wonder at the complaints of many amateurs of their uncertainty and tendency to fogging. The plates themselves are excellent, but full success with them, however carefully prepared, depends on the mode of development, and assuredly that recommended in the "instructions is far from being the best, or even good. But not to interrupt my "comparative trials" with a long dissertation on this or that particular process, I will revert more particularly to the Norris process in a future article. No. 4. Exposed immediately after the last, in apparently the same light, for thirty minutes, on the same subject. Developed in the usual way for these films. The negative would have been a good, although rather under-exposed one, but its beauty was sadly marred by blisters on the film. No. 5. Mr. Collings's third wet plate was now ready, and exposed for four minutes; mine exposed side by side with it for ten minutes. The former had the correct time, the latter was rather overdone; but by "dodging" the alkaline developer with bromide, I got the negative all right, except that I could not remedy the effects of the strong wind on the weak portable legs of my camera. From this cause the image was slightly-very slightlyblurred in the outlines. No. 6. Exposed for fifteen minutes on the same subject, immediately after the last. Developed in the way recommended by Mr. Fothergill. Fully exposed, and a nice clean negative, but the sharp outlines of the image blunted by vibration of the camera, and damaged by two or three blisters on the film. No. 7. A Russell plate exposed alongside Mr. Collings's fourth wet one, and for the same time, viz., four minutes. The time for both accurately judged. Development alkaline. In this case I omitted to coat the edges of the glass with a solution of India-rubber in benzole, and in consequence lost part of the film while washing an excellent negative. No. 8. This Liverpool plate must have been exposed to actinic light before I received it. There was scarcely a possibility of its having been so acted on while in my possession, because it and all others were always in a lockfast place till transferred to the dark frames by myself, after which no one could tamper with them, because they were not out of my own hands. Inevitable result-a total eclipse. No. 9. It was while Mr. Collings was about to ex pose this, his fifth wet plate (11 a.m.), that his camera was "borne away on the wings of the wind" and dashed to pieces on the roots of the nearest beech tree. Nothing daunted by the accident, I exposed my Norris rapid dry plate for the same time that he contemplated giving to the wet one, viz., three minutes and a half. The film was developed according to the instructions laid down by Dr. Norris, as follows:-Protosulphate of iron thirty grains, dissolved in two ounces distilled water, and glacial acetic acid thirty minims; nitrate of silver sixty grains, in one ounce of distilled water. Wet the plate; take four drachms of the iron solution, and mix with them intimately sixteen drops of the silver. Apply as usual in iron development. My plate, as I expected, was spoiled, from irregular patches of development, which no after " dodges" which he recommended would remedy. There was also a considerable fuzziness of image, arising from the tremor of the camera by the wind, and the action of the latter on the boughs of the clump of trees to which I had pointed my lens. I expected this; else I should not have developed this plate according to "instructions ;" nevertheless the development showed how nearly a Norris's rapid dry plate approaches the sensitiveness of the wet process. Nos. 10, 11, 12, and 13. These do not come under my comparative estimate with wet collodion, because Mr. Collings's camera had come to grief. I therefore sought a more sheltered part of the forest, and exposed each of them for ten minutes, developing 10, 12, and 13 by the alkaline method, and No. 11 according to Mr. England's instructions. All were exposed seemingly in the same bad light and on similar subjects. The film of No. 10 wrinkled a little at one of the corners while in the fixing bath; otherwise it was an excellent negative. No. 11 was much under-exposed; it had two or three blisters on it, but developed very clean; ten minutes longer exposure would have made it nearly right. Nos. 12 and 13 were the two best negatives out of the whole forenoon's work, but I believe only so from the fact that the camera was entirely sheltered by close underwood from the action of the strong gale. During the exposure of No. 13 a hailstone storm raged furiously, yet it seemed to have no effect in marring the beauty of the negative, probably because the principal objects represented were the trunks of a pair of gnarled oak and beech trees close at hand. The middle and far distance were lost, or nearly so; but perhaps that is no loss after all, for I have now got two "portraits" of dissimilar trees standing out against a neutral background. TABLE OF COMPARATIVE SENSITIVENESS. (For the first eight plates.) 1 SPARE A COPPER, YER HONOUR " "SPARE A COPPER, YER HONOUR?" BY E. R. NEARLY all phases of life, and all kinds of feeling and sentiment, may be found embodied in the photgraphic 2 pictures of O. G. Rejlander ;-subjects full of classic 4 dignity, and subjects expressive of every-day incidents in vulgar life, subjects humorous, and subjects pathetic, &c. But in all, the mind and feeling, the taste and education, of an accomplished artist are unmistakeably apparent. The photograph from which we this week give a drawing, by Mr. A. H. Wall, is as perfect in its way as Mr. Rejlander's more ambitious and difficult works. It is treated just as such a subject should be treated, viz., with perfect simplicity. For all that appears to the contrary in the picture, it might have been taken in the open air, from the sweeper pursuing his vocation at his crossing. The rags on the boy are evidently the result of age and careless usage, not the got-up rags which we see on the stage and in the photographic pictures of some whose ideas of art and It must be clearly understood, the above table is only an approximation at the best. The plates were all exposed along with wet ones on the same subject, and when there was a deficiency of detail in the shadows, or a redundancy when compared with the wet plates, I have exercised my judgment in saying what would be the proper exposure to make them as nearly as possible the same. I am not far wrong in my estimate; but I should have been better satisfied had not the untoward accident to Mr. Collings's camera abruptly terminated our day's proceedings. artificiality are one, and who appear to think that when a thing is least natural it is most artistic. The boy's smile suggests the boy's words, and the action is just that which indicates that his appeal is to some one who is passing him, and with whose steps he must keep up, if that appeal is either to be repeated or responded to. I have seen the same subject treated by other photographers, with less artistic ability, and in each case the photograph represented only a boy conscious of the photographer's presence, and indicating by his grin, or look of curiosity, that his portrait was being taken. Nothing beyond these facts were suggested, and consequently the photographs had a conspicuously artificial tone, from which it was impossible for the mind to escape. In all of them the rags were made the most of, and you saw at a glance that this was the case. If photographers want to be artistic, they must render their works natural; and if they want subjects to study and experimentalise with, they cannot do better than select one of the class to which "Spare a copper, your honour?" belongs, for it is one which presents the fewer difficulties, yet always commands popularity if successfully treated. We almost wish Mr. Wall had introduced a background to the sketch, although Mr. Rejlander's photograph has The white ground is a conspicuous defect. none. NEW SILVER COMPOUND FOR PRINTING, MORE BY P. H. VAN DER WEYDE, M.D. FIVE substances are grouped together by chemists as having similar properties, they are called halogens, and consist of chlorine, bromine, iodine, fluorine, and cyanogen. The silver compounds of the first three are used by the photographer to prepare his sensitive surfaces, the last, when combined with potassium, is used as a solvent for the former; the fluorine, however, has not been made available as yet, and it has only been suspected by chemists to be probably useful for photographic purposes, because it belongs to the same group; however, equivalents with fluorides of silver as a substitute or additions to the chloride, bromide, or iodide, made by me several years ago, as well as by many other photographers and chemists, have always failed to produce any result whatso ever. others all showed inferiority, more or less, without apparently any compensating advantage. Moreover, those bromised collodion plates which were prepared by excitation in a nitrate bath, and subsequent washing, according to Major Russell's plan, described in my article in the same number, were more sensitive than Mr. Mawdsley's plates, or than Mr. Dawson's, prepared by that simple process. Mr. Dawson's experiments are, therefore, very instructive; and I am truly glad to be able to refer to them now, since they have an important bearing upon the subject of these articles. They confirm, in fact, all that I have said thus far, when speaking of the merits of the bromised collodion process. Those artists and amateurs to whom the process is new, and who wish to master it quickly, cannot do better than take lessons in it from Mr. Dawson himself at King's College. In a week's instruction from him they will learn more, perhaps, than by months of experimenting without such help. Moreover, now is the time to take lessons, or make experiments for one's self, before the season for out-ofdoor photography begins. Never employ a new and illunderstood process in the field. Try it first many times in your own garden, or near to home. A water-butt, with a few dark shrubs, and a bit of whitewashed wall, form together as good a test-object às can be had. Practise upon something of this kind, until you have mastered the process, at home. The only objection to this sort of testobject is, that in or near a great town the atmosphere is often overcharged with smoke, which dims the brilliancy of the shadows of the picture, and causes the negative to be, like the objects themselves-foggy. A negative may be veiled, not through any fault of the process or the chemi cals, but because the objects themselves were shrouded in a sort of mist of smoke. Never expose an experimental plate to any set of objects, or to any view in which there are not some vigorous shadows, which ought to yield clear glass in the negative. Let us now pass on to the OPERA-GLASS CAMERA. I have bestowed a great deal of thought on this subject during the last three months, so as to arrive at a good plan of the instrument, which shall embody all the requirements. Let us first consider what are these requirements. It was reserved for Mr. Prat to discover the cause; he has found that all our so-called fluorides are really oxyfluorides, We have agreed to use plates three inches square, and to that the fluoride of calcium (from which very common mineral take upon them round negatives, two inches and a half in we most always obtain our other fluorine compounds) is formed diameter. This circle ought to include from thirty to sixty of two equivalents of calcium, one of oxygen and one of fluorine; degrees, according to the will of the operator; and in certherefore, in order to obtain fluorine, he treats the fluoride of cal- tain cases a much smaller angle, when he wishes to make cium, not with sulphuric acid and oxide of manganese, as thus a study of wild flowers, or of some very near object. He far was done, but with chlorate of potash, or better, the perchlor-will also require to take-very often, probably-instanate; in this case a mixture of oxygen and fluorine gas is taneous subjects. The little camera must, therefore, have a produced, the latter of which is greedily absorbed by silver, set of two, three, or more different lenses adapted to it, forming a fluoride of silver, which is a substance insoluble in Moreover, water, soluble in ammonia, from which it is precipitated by there need not be a portrait lens, since the results obtained any one of which can be quickly adjusted. nitric acid, and which is altered by the action of light more rapidly than chloride of silver. The formula of this pure by Mr. Griffiths on bromised plates last, summer, prove fluoride of silver is AgFl, while that of soluble fluoride of silver, that instantaneous subjects can be taken successfully with useless for the photographer, which we thus far have been a single lens, having a stop one-tenth of its focal length in making after the old chemical method thus far in use, is AgFl diameter. Nor need the lenses be non-distorting, because +AgO, in fact this is not a pure fluoride at all, but a compound distortion in the negative can be rectified in the print by of the fluoride with the oxide of silver, and is therefore in- using a suitable lens in the copying camera. It appears, sensible to light.-Humphrey's Journal. therefore, that single lenses will do, which is fortunate, because the instrument will be greatly simplified by the use of them. I recommend three deep meniscus lenses, of two inches, three inches, and four inches focal lengths respectively; and achromatised, not according to Mr. Dallmeyer's plan, but in the same manner as the front lens of Mr. Ross's actinic doublet. I have made a very thorough and careful comparison of a deep meniscus by Mr. Dallmeyer, and another by Mr. Ross, which I removed from one of his doublets, and the superiority of the latter in marginal definition was very marked indeed. It was also very superior to the back lens of the same doublet when used with a stop in front; so that the aplanatic form of deep meniscus is to be avoided, on account of the inferiority of the oblique pencils. LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY FOR THE BY THOMAS SUTTON, B.A. But first let me beg of the reader to bestow a very attentive perusal on Mr. Dawson's paper in the sixth number of this journal, at page 65. There he will find described some careful experiments with dry plates prepared in different ways, and developed by the rapid alkaline method. Of these the most sensitive were the bromised collodion, which rivalled wet collodion in sensitiveness; whilst the The two-inch focus lens includes too wide an angle for |