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November 30, 1883.] THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. 761 creasing at a rate much slower than that of the previous increase. Some very large spots have been visible lately. In commencing his usual winter course cf lectures on photographic chemistry at the Vienna High School, Dr. Eder announces that they are free to all members of the Local Photographic Society. How long will members of the London Society have to wait before they enjoy such privileges ? Instantaneous photography in America appears to be somewhat of a novelty. The Illustrated World, of New York, thinks it worthy of remark that a photographer should be successful in obtaining photographs of views of objects of interest in and about that city. It observes that “one series illustrates some of the principal features of the ceremonial at the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, repro duced, of course, with absolute fidelity, the exposure of the plates being so exceedingly brief that the vibration caused by the machinery of the steam tug on which the camera stood had no perceptible effect upon the pictures.” Such photographs in the supposed smoky atmosphere of England are of everyday occurrence. Meanwhile the lighting of Swan and other incandescent lamps by primary batteries, if rather expensive, is at any rate quite practical, as we pointed out some time ago. The Pullman car attached to the afternoon express to Leeds is now lighted by six Swan lamps, we hear, rendered incan descent by a primary battery measuring but four feet long and eight inches broad and deep, zinc and carbon being the elements employed. So successful has been this experiment, indeed, that Messrs. Holmes and Burke are to light carriages on other lines, and are making arrangements to supply such batteries to private houses. If not very expensive to buy or keep in order, photographers would be ready customers enough for these batteries. Speaking of albumen, Za Nature enumerates three efficient ways of preserving eggs:—1. In a lime mixture, made up of 100 grammes of slaked lime and 10 grammes of sugar, diluted sufficiently with water to cover 250 eggs, which should remain immersed for a fortnight. 2. By covering the eggs with a film of wax or grease, gum-arabic, plaster, &c., and then rubbing them over with pulverized charcoal, care being taken to let the eggs rest points downwards. 3. By laying the eggs in a mixture of salt and bran, or sand and charcoal, in layers upon straw. There can be little doubt that gelatino-bromide paper will be used largely for the direct printing of negatives in the pressure frame. When sunshine is rare and a whole morning fails to give a single print upon albumenized paper, it is something to know that you can, if need be, print hundreds of impressions by the light of a candle upon gelatino-bromide paper—impressions, too, that are likely to prove more permanent than albumen. Care, no doubt, is required in exposing and developing, but so it is in the other process. As regards the distance of the printing frame from the gas jet or candle, a correspondent says, “The harder and denser a negative is—that is to say the more contrast it has—the greater the distance it must be from the light; only very soft and very harmonious nega tives can be printed quickly near the light.” Very little interest is taken in this country about bisecting the Isthmus of Panama by M. Lesseps and his company; but the work is daily pursued by many thousand labourers, who have been engaged for the under- taking. Mr. Woods, who visited the spot this summer, tells us that the engineering staff is well organized, and that photography is actively employed, not only in recording work done, but in printing by the Pellet process such copies of plans and projects as are required. Until we can get a cheap way of making electricity, electric lighting is not likely to come into general household us e. The simplest solution of the problem would be to find two inexpensive elements to form a primary battery; if two bodies of this character could be discovered, of which inexhaustible supplies exist on earth, then the greater part of our troubles would disappear. According to the Paris Figaro, this discovery seems to have been made by M. Basset an eminent Erench chemist, who claims to produce electric currents at a marvellously cheap rate. The same authority also tells us that bad eggs may be “ restored ” by making use of sub-nitrate of bismuth, or hydrated peroxide of iron, to absorb the sulphur that exists in the sulphuretted hydrogen of decomposed eggs. The other day we saw a photograph of “ London and four miles round ” in the form of a transparency, small enough to go into one’s waistcoat pocket. Burnished with this, and a pocket-magnifier, the stranger has the whole of the metropolis literally at his fingers’ ends. Qatent Entelligence. Application for Provisional Protection. 5164. Albert Kepler, of Peckham, in the county of Surrey, Achille Morin de PREMTOX, and Alfred PIGEAU, of Lombard Street, in the city of London, for an invention of “ Improvements in the manner, method, or mode of preparing and producing coloured photographs, and in the arrangements and apparatus employed therefor.”—Dated 20th November, 1883. Patents Granted in Germany. 25,168. A. C. Mohns, of Wittenberg, for “A developing frame for photographic drying-plates.”—Dated 17th April, 1883.— Class 57. 25,171. Fickeiessen and Becker, of Villingen, for “Obtaining flexible plates for superseding glass in photography.’’—Dated 27th April, 1883.—Class 57. 26,278. R. Klein, Zurich, for "An instantaneous screen for photographic lenses.”—Dated 21st March, 1883.—Class 57. 25,292. M. Marco, of Trieste, for “A photographic camera obscura with a cross-focus.”—Dated 21st June, 1883.—Class 57. Specification Published during the Week. W. R. Lake, “ Adjustable chairs, chiefly designed for photo graphic purposes.”—A communication from W. S. Liscombe. The Patentee claims the combination of a chair-seat, a pivotal base-block rigidly secured at the rear edge of the said seat, a rigid back-supporting standard, pivotted at the said base-block, and united and combined therewith and with the chair sub-