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8 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. LJANUARY 2, 1885. gradually survive the new shock to its nerves which recent photographic enterprise is calculated to cause it. Thus, but a day or two since we saw the Premier’s likeness—a cabinet portrait, of course—between photographs of a flash of forked lightning and of a tornado. Both friend and enemy can draw deductions from this juxta-position. But it is certainly a somewhat startling one at first. Ere long we shall doubtless see the portrait, say, of Mr. Chamber- lain, flanked by one of an earthquake, or a theatrical star’s “ promenade ” portrait side by side with that of a shooting one. In fact, we shall soon cease to wonder at anything. One often wants to make a same sized transparency from a thin negative, or a negative from a thin transparency ; and in spits of the most Careful attention to exposure and development, the result is not always what one could wish. Mr. W. Brooks, however, points out that if the exposure is made through red glass, it becomes possible to obtain a much more vigorous reproduction than would otherwise be obtained. It is needless to say that a proper allowance for the feebleness of the light must, of course, be made in exposing. This proceeding of Mr. Brooks is strictly analogous to the common practice of shading the printing-frame when a print is wanted from a thin negative. The technical expert is, of all critics, the most difficult to please. A sailor, after looking at Mr. Hadley’s picture " At the Wheel,” observed, patronisingly: “ It ain’t a bad photograph; but what’s that chap doing at the wheel when the craft’s moored fast? And if the vessel warn’t moored, what’s he mean by a looking off? How’s he to prevent running into something if he don’t look ahead ?’ We felt it useless to point out to the critic the exigencies of pictorial effect as to pose, and left him in possession of the field. Apropos of frauds, it is necessary once more to caution photographers who want to sell their business against the pair of diminutive individuals whose sharp practices were disclosed in an article which appeared some three months ago in these columns, and afterwards corroborated by a correspondent. We understand that the man and woman are still on the look out for the unwary. There would seem to be something in photography which makes it a convenient vehicle for fraud in the hands of the unscrupulous. The latest dodge is that practised by a “ Company,” which established itself in a street off the Strand, and laid its traps for the nnwary. The « Company ” consisted of two individuals who adver tised for customers, holding out as baits good pictures and low prices. The modus operandi was this : An arrangement was made with a neighbouring photographer to take the negatives, the “ Company ” executing the prints and arranging the business portion of the matter. When a sitter presented himself to the “ Company,” he was trotted off to the photographer, who, no doubt, did his work con scientiously, being paid by the “ Company; ” but after a specimen print had been forwarded, nothing more was forthcoming. Finally,when the sitters began to be angry at the delay, the shutters of the “ Company’s ” offices were put up, and the “ Company ” disappeared. In order to make the dark-room lamp burn vigorously and well, Mr. F. C. Beach suggests that it should be furnished with a tall chimney of sheetmetal. Under these circumstances a good draught is produced, and there is little fear of carbon-monoxide—the highly-poisonous pro duct of incomplete combustion—being produced. Mr. Beach’s suggestion is an excellent one. Mr. C. Ray Woods will shortly proceed to the Cape to make a series of star maps of the Southern Hemisphere. Is it necessary to say that the maps will be photographic ones ? By adopting the now almost discarded practice of glazing the studio with glass of a bluish tint, one does not shorten the exposure in an absolute sense, although one certainly would expect to shorten it in relation to the amount of light present inside. In other words, for equal photographic activity, there is less glare on the eyes of a sitter, in a blue studio. Perhaps one reason why one hears or sees so little of the blue glazing, is the circumstance that there is not sufficient demand for the light blue or violet glass, to induce manu facturers to produce it at a low price. Herr Himly had occasion to photograph some writing executed with violet aniline ink, but could get no im pression on his sensitive plate.. With one of Dr. Vogel’s azaline plates the case was different, a vigorous negative being obtained at once. A drawing made on yellow paper was also copied without difficulty. In the hands of Mr. R. Keene, of Derby, the Platino- type process makes headway as a means of book illustra tion, the latest announcement of this gentleman being " Bridgehouse, its Scenery and Antiquities,” by George Hepworth. The book is to contain thirty Platinotypes by Mr. Keene, from the author’s negatives. The first of Mr. Dixon’s lectures “ On the use of Coal Gas ” appears in the current number of the Journal of the Society op Arts, and he tells us that London gas contains about twelve grains of sulphur per hundred cubic feet— say the amount of gas which would be burned by three jets in the course of an evening. It is probably this sul phur which gradually spoils dry plates which are kept where much gas is burned, and its destructive action on metal work is well known. Further on, in the same number of the Journal oj the Society q/ Arts, one finds a paper on the best method of slaughtering the lower animals, by Dr. Richardson, and he finds coal gas to be one of the most efficient agents for producing, first, insensibility, and afterwards death. One