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Mr. Herbert B. Berkeley and Mr. Horace Wilmer have been elected members of the Solar Club. On another column will be found a notice of the New castle Exhibition; next week we hope to present our readers with one of the principal pictures in the form of a supplement. A happy idea has struck our French friends to employ the blind in the injurious red light of emulsion-making factories ; M. Davanne has, with this object, placed him self in communication with the Paris Institution of the Blind. Next year is to see the birth of a new monthly magazine in America devoted to photography ; it will be published in Baltimore. Major A. Senior, B.S.C., writes us from Rawal Pindi on the subject of dry plate work in the tropics. He says:— “ Last year I made a successful trip into Cashmere, over difficult and dangerous country, travelling for thirty miles on snow. Returning on the 15th July, after the monsoons set in, I very foolishly tried to develop with the aid of ice. In my first attempt the pictures were satisfactory, but the developer speedily got warm and softened and dissolved the films. So I stopped work, and waited nearly two months, when, in a cooler temperature, I developed the remainder of the plates without a failure.” Major Senior, whose name is familiar as the recipient of a gold medal from the Bengal Photographic Society, sends us “ a simple and efficient arrangement for washing prints,” which we shall gladly place at the service of our readers. Speaking of gold medals, by the way, we hear that Mr 11. P. Robinson, of Tunbridge Wells, has been fortunate enough to secure the gold award at the Newcastle Exhibi tion. This makes the second “ gold ” that has fallen to Mr. Robinson this year. Mr. Gibson, of Hexham, who gained the silver medal at the Newcastle Exhibition, sends to us the two delightful prints which secured him that honour, “An Autumn Evening on the Tyne,” and “ The Sand Cart.” The former shows a bend in the broad limpid stream embowered in soft foliage; some overspreading branches cast a deep shadow on the waters of the foreground, but in the distance the stream is rippled with silver. Over all, there is a delicate haze of sundown, veiling a sylvan landscape which for natural beauty is not to be excelled in this land of wood land vales and leafy dells. On Thursday, December 13th, Captain Abney delivers a lecture on “ Solar Radiation,” at the Town Hall, Glasgow, in connection with the Glasgow Science Lectures Association. Captain Abney will also deliver a series of lectures at the Royal Institution before Easter. Writes Mr. H. Brain : i“ Why should not makers of dry plates cut off the top right-hand corner—the coated side being towards the operator? It would then be perfectly easy to fill the dark slides without any light at all, and a mistake would be impossible.” We may add that a flat nose pliers will crush the corner of the plate very easily and effectively, and as dry plate dark-slides are made with a rabbett, and not with wires, to support the corners of the plate, Mr. Brain’s suggestion to remove an angle would not jeopardize the steadiness of the glass in the frame. At the last meeting of the Liverpool Astronomical Society, the Rev. S. E. Espin read a paper on “Further attempts at obtaining the actinic light of the stars by means of photography at the Society’s observatory.” Mr. Espin has succeeded in obtaining two plates, one of Cas siopeia, and one of Taurus, showing the Pleiades and Saturn; and the results went to indicate that the stars might be divided into three classes—stars whose chemical light was in excess of the light so apparent to the naked eye ; stars where it was equal; and stars where it was inferior. As a rule, the photographic images corresponded to the mag nitudes, but there were some notable exceptions. In the Taurus plate, for instance, out of forty-one stars compared, there were fifteen stars whose actinic magnitudes could not be made to correspond with the eye-magnitudes, and the difference in some cases was very considerable. Astral photography, by the way, demands exceptional patience and endurance on the part of the operator. Thus it was mentioned in the discussion which followed, that each of the plates had an exposure of an hour and a-half, and during the whole of this time Mr. Espin was lying on the ground following a star with the “ finder.” The result, however, was worth the trouble, since it was stated that on examining the Cassiopeia plate with a magnifier, the stars appeared perfectly round, a gratifying testimeny to the skill with which the work had been performed. The Pall Mall Gazette has published an account of the visit of a correspondent to the atelier of Mons. Goupil. The establishment is at Asnihres, and consists of two villas thrown together and shut off from the street by a high wall. The method of working is kept a profound secret, and all that the correspondent saw will be found detailed in another column. A novelty in the Year-Book for 1884 will be “The Chemical Corner.” Within the space of a few pages, we shall not only give practical instructions in elementary analysis, but shall tersely specify the reactions observed with all substances the photographer is likely to make the acquaintance of. Thus, he will be able, at very little pains, to learn something of the chemistry of his art and of the bodies with which he has to deal. It may be of interest to photographers who, without the sun, would bo nowhere, to know that the maximum of the unspots occurred last year. They have, it seems, been de-