Volltext Seite (XML)
680 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. [OcroELa 1883. Zutes. In connection with the illustration we give this week, our readers will feel some interest in “ How the Chittywee was Taken,” in which Mr. West describes photography from a sailing boat. Next Friday evening, November 2nd, the Photographic Exhibition will be specially opened for the benefit of the Photographers’ Benevolent Association. The Exhibition register was cast up on Tuesday last, and the number of visitors was found to be no less than 1,171 in excess of those who came during the corresponding period last year; while the cash taken is £17 7s. 6d. in excess. We have to acknowledge the receipt from the Belgian Association of the “ Diploma of Honour” recently awarded to the Photographic News. The art-critic of the Daily Chronicle evidently imagines that he has discovered the true philosopher’s stone of photographic progress. He thus concludes a singularly inconsequent and dogmatical notice of the exhibition:— “ With the sincere wish to encourage the development of any discovery which posseses certain artistic elements, we would say to the professor of photography—Study well the relation between cause and effect Remember that mere imitation is but a low, if not the lowest, form of art. In suggesting generally sound artistic training for those who would practise photography, we cannot but think we have supplied the true means for the fulfilment of the pur pose of that yet undeveloped art.” It is the general custom to varnish all gelatine plates in the New York studios, such a varnish as that made by dis solving 360 grammes of bleached lac in a litre of spirit being employed. The retouching of the negative is done before varnishing, the gelatine film being moistened, when neces sary, with turpentine or other medium. But in some of the American studios—Kocher’s, of Chicago, for instance—no varnishing nor retouching, or very little, takes place until a print, untoned and unfixed, has been seen and approved by the customer. Thus, Dr. Vogel. At the last meeting of the French Academy of Sciences a discovery was announced which, if confirmed, will have particular interest for photographers. A French physicist affirms that he is able to analyse the sun’s rays and sepa rate the heating medium from the luminous and actinic medium in a very simple fashion. It suffices simply to allow a sunbeam to fall upon a plate of glass covered with an exceedingly thin and even layer of selenium, the latter having been melted at a temperature of 250° C., in order to effect the separation. The Patent Office has the right to refuse a patent, though the right is seldom exercised. In the case of Mr. Van der Weyde’s last application for protection, a refusal has been given, and, to our thinking, most improperly. Taking into consideration the many trivial matters that are patented now-a-days, Mr. Van der Weyde’s idea to employ incandescent wires for night signalling is decidedly a rational suggestion. A carbon wire or platinum wire, like those in the electric incandescent lamp, is bent in the form of a big letter or figure, and a series of these dis played, say, at the masthead of a vessel, or signalling tower. One letter after another—just as the operator likes—is rendered incandescent by an electric current, and the letter starting into life and light may be read at a distance. Words might be quickly and easily spelt in this fashion, and the signals read by a telescope. Nay, with a little arrangement, the bright letters, as they appear one after another in the darkness, might be photographed, and thus written down. In the case of signalling on board a steamer, whether this is a man-of-war or a mail packet, the steam power on board would always supply plenty of electricity. Dr. Koch, of Berlin, who described his process of micro- photography in these columns two years ago, has made another most important discovery. How he successfully photographed the bacteria incidental to gangrene, inter mittent fever, &c., as they appear in animal tissue, is well known to our readers, and how he was thus enabled to con nect distinct organisms with distinct diseases we have also described. Dr. Koch has now discovered the deadly animalcul that go hand in hand with cholera, if they do not represent cholera itself. These bacteria he finds in no other portion of a subject but the bowels, the only organs, be it remembered, that are attacked; the liver, heart, and other portions of the body are quite free. Strange to say, too, these terrible little bacteria only attack man; Dr. Koch conveyed them to other living creatures—mice, dogs, guinea-pigs—but all of these escaped cholera. The Stannotype Process is now fairly established at the works of Messrs. Woodbury, Treadaway, and Company, and according to their present system it appears as easy to make a printing mould as to make an ordinary carbon print. In this mould a practically unlimited humber of prints can be cast; the Woodbury print is actually a cast ing in coloured gelatine, not a print in the old-fashioned sense of the term ; but the thickness of the casting is so small that when the picture is dry it is difficult to detect the circumstance that the picture stands out from the surface of the paper. Mr. Robert Hunt, the oldest living authority on matters photographic, is retiring from his post of Keeper of the Mining Records. In issuing the Exhibition catalogue, it was quite right to adopt the plan of the Royal Academy, and publish two editions, one as early as the day of the press view, and another, a corrected edition, afterwards. But it would have been better still to have followed out the Roya