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360 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. [June 8, 1883. Eotes. M. Leon Vidal, who has for some time past given lectures on the subject of ceramic photography to those interested in the Limoges enamel industry and others, is now to undertake a course of public instruction on the application of photographic printing to fabrics. Mr. Brownrigg has just returned from a most success ful little tour in Italy, bringing with him a series of delight ful sketches from the sunny south. He is good enough to promise us some account of his travels with the camera, so that those bent on a summer’s outing this year may learn by his experiences. By the way, he quotes a strange notice made by a Rheims photographer, who announces in three languages his readiness to do work for patrons ; the English version runs thus:—“ Children instantly executed here at all hours of the day.” M. Janssen, in his last memoir, aptly sums up the aid photography is likely to lend in future to science, by say ing that “ la plaque photographique sera bientt la veritable retine du savant.” The Prince of Wales has nominated Messrs. Reichard and Lindner, of Berlin, “ Court Photographers ” to His Royal Highness. Florence has now a photographic journal. It is the Camera Oscura of Professor L. Borlinetto, which at one time used to date from Brindisi. Our American cousins rarely do things by halves. The National Photographic Association of America has invited onr colleague, Dr. Vogel, of Berlin, to their Congress at Milwaukee next August, and the principal of the New North Pacific line has begged his acceptance of a free ticket from Hamburg to San Francisco and back. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the learned Doctor accepts the invitation, so that the Mitfheilungen will lose its editor-in-chief for a couple of months this summer. Another word on matters American while we are about it. A circular comes to us anent the prices of dry plates in the States, telling us that five manufacturers have established a uniform list of charges, and further, that “ Carbutt, of Philadelphia, and Neidhardt, of Chicago, approve their action. The smaller makers are supposed to be in harmony with the proceedings, and, it is thought, will adopt this list.” We should so much like to know what all this means, and, like Rosa Dartle, earnestly entreat somebody to give us an explanation. Does it mean a “ ring,” for instance ? Dr. Liesegang’s name is usually associated with the Archiv; but he tells us in the last issue of that journal that he was the originator of the Moniteur de la Photo- graphie, twenty-three years ago. Identification by photographs is all very well, but when a witness swears to a lady she saw casually ten years ago by a photograph recently taken—as was the case in the Law Courts last week—one cannot help thinking that a heated imagination is outrunning discretion. In the Wochenblatt we see that attention is called to the serious losses incurred by the faulty packing of photo graphic requisites in general, and dry plates in particular. Certainly manufacturers who expect plates to travel un broken by rail and steamer should take special pains to pack firmly and securely. So far as we are aware, the best exterior package for dry plates is a wicker hamper, and the best interior one, the box suggested by Herr Schwarz, which we have sketched and described in these columns. Vanity Fair states that at a fancy dress ball, given last week at the Kensington Town Hall, several of the groups were photographed by means of the electric light. If electricity continues the rapid strides it has hitherto made, the occupation of the luxographic light will be gone. For the last two winters it has been the “correct thing” at fancy dress balls of any pretensions to have a photographer in attendance, who has rigged up an impromptu studio in an adjoining room, and, by the help of the luxographic light, taken the portraits of the ladies and gentlemen who wished to preserve a souvenir of their appearance. Apropos of fancy dresses, an enterprising photographer, not a hundred miles from the Tottenham Court Road, makes an announcement somewhat to this effect: “ Ladies who wish to be taken in fancy costume are informed that dresses are kept on the premises.” The copying of drawings and designs by the ferro- prussiate method has become so important that the firm of Schleicher and Schll, of Diiren, Rhenish Prussia, are pro ducing a paper specially adapted to the process. The paper usually employed by draughtsmen is too opaque to use as a cliche, and therefore a more transparent material is very desirable. It is a paper of this sort, sufficiently stout for ordinary drawing purposes, and yet transparent enough for printing through photographically by the blue process, that Messrs. Schleicher and Schll are manufacturing. The present Astronomer-Royal presented his first yearly report last Saturday. Now that India has joined hands with Greenwich in taking daily photographs of the sun, rarely a day passes that a picture of the luminary is not secured. At Greenwich it was found possible to secure photographs of the sun on 200 days during the year, and only seven of these pictures show the sun to be spotless. The number and size of the spots increased up to the date of the appearance of the great spot in November, since when the surface of the sun has been more quiescent. The Astronomer-Royal speaks also of the photographic records of the magnetic needle, and tells us that Mr. Morgan’s argentic gelatino-bromide paper, which has been adopted since June last at the Royal Observatory, has led