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with the waves breaking over the Godwin sands, and in the distance, clearly limned on the horizon, were the white chalk cliffs of France, thirty miles away from the camera. In the cause of Science! Says the St. James' Gazette :— “ A German brewer in Nevada, who has been reading about blasting agents—of gun-cotton, nitro-glycerine, and finally quicklime—has been cogitating over the subject, and has come to the conclusion : Why not yeast ? Accordingly, he commenced a series of trials, and in the pursuit of science, not only blew several strongly-hooped casks to pieces, but actually ‘forced out one end of his brewery.’ We pre sume he will now make a final experiment, and raze his establishment to the ground.” Dr. Stolze, in the Wochenblatt, recommends the prepara tion of durable sensitized paper as follows :—The paper is floated upon a silver bath (nitrate of silver 1 part, water 10 parts) for some four minutes, then drawn over a glass rod, and laid, reverse side downwards, upon a second bath of citrate of potash (citrate 1 part, water 30 parts) for another four minutes. Subsequently it is immersed in rain water. The toning of this paper should take place after fixing, snd a sulpho-cyanide of gold bath is recom mended for the purpose. Knights of science are so rare that their advent may well be chronicled. Dr. Playfair, who, until recently, was Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons, is nominated K.C.B.; and another equally famous chemist, Professor Abel, C.B , is to receive the honour of Knight hood. “The atmosphere is so much clearer over there,” is a travelled Englishman’s explanation when he shows some very bright portrait that has been taken in Paris, Vienna, or St. Petersburgh. Photographers know very well that it is rather the retouching “ over there,” more than any thing else, that gives the brightness and boldness as well, very often, in the photograph ; still, to make quite certain, it may be as well to note what Mr. Proctor says, in the last number of Knowledge, anent the amount of light absorbed by the atmosphere in a room or studio. You may take “ one 10,000th part as the utmost loss of ab sorption in a room nine yards long. This, of course, would be utterly inappreciable, even with the most delicate photometer,” adds Mr. Proctor. That was an ingenious gentleman who invented the story in the Times the other day of the High Church curate sworn to celibacy, and the young lady who had conceived for him an ardent and hopeless passion. Only one favour she requested before bidding him adieu for ever, that he would give her one kiss! The young curate, touched with pity, complied, and some days after had the happiness of receiving a neat little parcel tied up with blue ribbon ; in opening this hefound an instantaneous photograph (cabinet size) of himself kissing the young lady, with an intimation that there were eleven more copies, and that he might have the whole dozen at £20 a-piece. The story is well found, but one really would like to know by what instantaneous process the photograph was taken, how the camera and operator were concealed, and how the lady managed so that the curate had his face turned to the camera and in focus. A Society j ournal asserts that the latest freak of fashion is to have one’s smiles photographed. If this be so, the height of folly can no further go. In spite of the repeated injunction to “ smile and look pleasant,” which every photographer, until he got wiser, has made use of some time in his career, a natural smile remains one of the most difficult things to accomplish photographically. A laughing expression successfully caught is, however, a triumph. One of Mr. Cowan’s lantern transparencies exhibited at tho Photographic Society was the picture of a girl laughing, enlarged to life size. The fidelity to nature was so drolly palpable, that the spectators could not resist laughing themselves. If good models could be obtained, we are inclined to think a series of experi ments might be produced, which, when thrown on the screen, would be intensely humorous, and much more provocative of laughter than the so-called comic slides. The Princess Beatrice has been sitting to Mr. Moira for a portrait in miniature, and the circumstance has caused the World to hope for “a more general revival of interest in a branch of art that has too long remained in abeyance.” As if the simpering, inane, miniature of our grandmothers had not been killed beyond recovery by photography! The best specimens of the old school cannot equal the combination of the photographer with the artist, as even the World might discover if coloured photographic minia tures were the fashion. N/ A papier mache floor, according to an American con temporary, is cheaper and warmer than matting or oil cloth. Photographers who wish to know how they may cover their studio or laboratory floors with the material, have but to follow this simple plan. After the floor has been thoroughly cleaned, the holes and cracks are filled with paper putty, made by soaking old newspapers in a paste made of flour, water, and ground alum, one pound of flour and a table-spoonful of alum being added to three quarts of water, and boiled. With this paste the floor is coated, and then a sheet of glazed brown paper—such as hardware is wrapped in—is applied ; a second coating of paste and of paper is advisable, and then the whole per mitted to dry. Subsequently more paste is applied, and covered with a wall paper of an appropriate pattern; this latter, when dry, receives two or more coats of size made by dissolving half-a-pound of white glue in two quarts of hot water, and finally, when the sizing is thoroughly desiccated, the whole surface is covered with a coat of hard oil finish varnish. A smooth and durable paper floor is the result. / Drawing-room candles and fncy soap tablets may be tastefully decorated with photographs' without much