Volltext Seite (XML)
instruction. It is announced that a vessel has been chartered which will carry some fifty first-class passengers, accompanied by an artist, a photographer, a geologist, a mineralogist, a botanist, and a zoologist. Explorations will be made wherever opportunity offers, and there will be no hurrying over ground where anything valuable to science or art can be obtained. All this sounds very nice on paper, but it is to be feared that the unfortunate first- class passengers will soon be bored to death. It is so diffi cult to properly apportion the pleasure and the instruc tion, and we should not be at all surprised if the geologist, the mineralogist, the botanist, and the zoologist, were shelved in about a week, and the “ fifty ” give themselves up to music, private theatricals, dancing, flirtation—and photography. But to make the thing a success, fifty cameras and an ample supply of mateiial ought to be taken, and produced, one by one, as a sort of surprise. We are quite certain that if this were gone about judiciously, the whole “ fifty ” would return, each with his and her camera, and each with a stock of photographs, the taking of which would have proved an everlasting pleasure. A favourite pastime at juvenile parties in America is the photographic album. A large frame with a cover on hinges represents the album. The outside is covered with red cloth, while inside is an oval mat, with an opening sufficiently large to admit a life-sized head. The young folks then dress up in various characters, and are exhibited one by one through the opening, the album lid being closed between the exhibition of each picture. Of course means have to be adopted to conceal the lower portion of the figure, but®this can be easily contrived. The use of the magnesium light gives, it is said, quite a photographic look to these human pictures. A Philadelphian enthusiast—both in photography and Shakespeariana—has just issued a lovely little book (only fifty copies printed) entitled, “Composite Photography applied to the Portraits of Shakespeare.” The author W. R. Furness, is the son of the well-known critic, Dr. H. H. Furness, and he has applied Galton’s well-known method of combining various portraits to produce a single face, by the combination of all the important pictures, &c., of the poet, taking the Droeshout, Chandos, Jansen, Strat ford, and Felton portraits, and the Stratford bust, reduc ing them all to one size, and then exposing a negative of each for one-sixth of the proper time over a sensitive plate. The result is a very remarkable picture, the six very distinct portraits combining much better than might have been expected. Still, we think the author will admit that the material accessible is too scanty—probably only the Droeshout portrait and the Stratford bust have good claims to authenticity—and too diverse, to admit of satis factory results. Notwithstanding all this, the experiment is a very interesting one. H. Sadler is well known as one of our keenest-eyed astronomers, so that his testimony as to the value of stellar photography is doubly valuable. He writes to the English Mechanic :“ I have just seen a most marvellous photograph of the region round Epsilon Lyrae, made by the Bros. Henry with a 13-inch telescope. The 1 debi- lissima duplex ’ of Struve (a famous quadruple star) is most beautifully shown, the component stars being as clearly defined and round as the dot over a printed i. Not only this, but far smaller stars are most distinctly shown, without the slightest optical aid, as minute little needle points. The time of exposure was 120 minutes, and the star-discs are as round as possible.” Among those uses of glass which are a pretty direct outcome of its cheapness, may be mentioned its employ ment as a flooring material in business houses where light is scarce. In our Year-Book for 1885, this idea of using glass flooring was referred to by A. Borland, he telling how he bad made a portrait studio in which all the top light came through the glass floor of the room above. Slabs of glass about an inch thick are strong enough in ordinary cases. An inn situated among the Surrey Hills, and fame 1 as a house for bean-feasts, has a framed inscription hanging up in the bar, of which inscription the landlord is very proud. It sets forth how the employes of a certain establishment have for fourteen years in succession dined at the inn in question, and have always been satisfied with the accom modation. So that there should be no mistake about the matter, two photographs of the excursionists in a largo break are stuck on the card, and testify unquestionably the genuineness of the testimonial. The photographs, though differ.ng slightly, have evidently been taken at the same time. This'we are inclined to think is a pity. What a chance for showing the quality of the viands and the goodness of the liquors there would have been had the party been photographed before and after dining ! At the Autotype Works there is to be a change with the close of the year, E. W. Foxlee then terminating his long engagement with the Company. From the first, Foxlee has been associated with the development of carbon print ing in this country, and the prints which he exhibited about the time that Swan’s first paper on carbon printing was read, will be remembered by many. The Autotype Company, as represented by Messrs. Sawyer and Bird, have always been ready to render graceful tribute to the importance of E. W. Foxlee’s thoroughly practical labours in connection with the technical department, and it was only at the November meeting of the Photographic Society that J. R. Sawyer spoke of Foxlee’s share in the working out of a photo-engraving process at Ealing Dene. The arrangements which have been made with the view of amalgamating the businesses of Wratten and Fallow field with that of Morgan and Kidd have fallen through, so that the large joint stock company which was to have been, will not be formed. Unusually successful was the show of Alpine pictures got together by the Alpine Club this year. Much credit