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296 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. LMAY 8, 1885. of clearing the whites and securing the colour from further change when submitted to the hypo bath. We do not, however, advise the use of ammonium thiocyanate in the case of mixed emulsions that will tone satisfactorily with borax. Coating paper will be dealt with in our next article. Zotes. How nearly have some of the dreams of the middle-age romancers been realised ! The mirror that reflects the past, and also images current events in distant regions, is a reality of ourday. Now, it is only the recently past which we find reflected from the silvered plate of the photo graphers ; but if the developed New Zealander of Macaulay is to look from a bridge-pier upon by-gone London, he may take from his pocket a photographic reflection, show ing the glories of the hundred and eighty-eighth decade : he may look at the dense traffic as it once passed, in two con trary streams, over the bridge. Among the oldest of the reflections from the magic mirror of the camera is the picture of Lacock Abbey, the residence of Fox Talbot. “ This is,” says the father of photography in England, “ the first building that was ever yet known to have drawn its own picture.” The original from which our supplement of this week is copied, was published in Talbot’s Pencil of Nature, forty- one years ago—in 1844. It is in far better preservation than might have been expected, having rather become partially yellow than actually faded; but the yellow portions have photographed nearly as well as those parts that retain the original purplish tone. The circumstance that, with comparatively few excep tions, the photographs now made are fugitive, and will be completely gone in a few years, suggests the need of some organisation for preserving those photographs which may be useful to future generations. Perhaps the following would be a practicable scheme. Just as a copy of every book or journal must be sent by the publisher to the British Museum, let it be a law that a copy of every published photograph must be sent to the Museum. Those in charge would then judge of the relative importance of the subjects sent, and those worthy of being preserved could be grouped on a screen, and each group copied on a tolerably large plate—say 24 by 18 inches. From each negative thus obtained a carbon print (or perhaps two) should be made, after which the negative could be cleaned off the glass. If a photographic depart ment were organised at the Museum to do this work, and it were necessary to make ten or twenty reproduced sheets a day, the expense would not be enormous. All the various developers enumerated on page 289 are more or less adapted to every kind of gelatino-bromide plate, and the experimenter may learn much by trying the various formule given. A correspondent dating from Cork, writes:—“The Handel Festival this year at the Crystal Palace will be of especial interest, as it is the bi-centenary of the great com poser’s birth. Now would it not be a graceful thing if the Crystal Palace directors had the great orchestra with its 3,000 singers and instrumentalists photographed as a memento of the occasion 'I The feat would be an easy one, and the cost of reproduction by Woodburytype very small. If a gratis photograph were to accompany each ticket, I think it would be an inducement to the public to purchase.” Unquestionably ; but would our correspondent kindly explain how a photograph of the Handel Festival is to be obtained bejore the festival takes place ? Otherwise, the difficulties attending his proposition of presenting a photograph with each admission ticket are, we fear, in surmountable. Photograph the orchestra by all means, and the audience too, for the matter of that. Both would make effective pictures. Messrs Negretti and Zambra some years ago made several pictures of the orchestra, but these were of course by the collodion process. With a gelatine plate some very curious results might be obtained. Mr. Joseph Maas, for instance, in the act of producing the upper A from the chest in “ Sound an Alarm 1 ” He will probably sustain the note seven or eight seconds, quite long enough for the exposure in such a well-lighted place as the Crystal Palace. The Lady's Pictorial makes the old suggestion of a tax on photographs as one means of enabling the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tide over- his financial difficulties. We presume that the principle on which this proposal is based is that luxuries should be taxed rather than necessi ties. If so, how would our contemporary like a tax on fashion plates ? Mr. G. J. Burch focussed an image of the sun on the flame of a paraffin candle, and the spot of light thus pro duced looked like that obtained by focussing the sun upon such a fluorescent body as petroleum or a solution of quinine sulphate ; but a spectroscopic examination shows the difference, as the solar light reflected from the flame showed the Fraunhofer lines, but the light from the fluor escent liquid gave a continuous spectrum. In the Lancet of last week one finds a series of photo- typic reproductions of handwriting which are both instruc tive and suggestive. They show the effect of treatment in curing “ writer’s cramp,” and indicate how the writing of patients gradually improved from an illegible scrawl as the affection became cured. More than this, the influence of a slight disturbance of the general system is clearly indicated in one of the series by a retrogression in the steadiness of the writing. The question suggests itself whether the handwriting, if rightly interpreted, might not give in some sense a life history of an individual; and, just its by an inspection of the finger nails one may trace out the order and severity