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THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. Vol. VI. No. 214.—October 10, 1862. Nitish Essotiation for the Ebamtemen fit Stiente. The British Association has just concluded its thirty-second annual meeting, for the third time held at Cambridge. Any remark on the certainty and rapidity with which science and civilization have advanced since the establishment of this Association would be the assertion of a matter so trite as to appear a mere platitude. We were struck, however, by a trifling remark of our companion in the railway carriage journeying back to London, himself a veteran man of science—Mr. Robert Chambers. He said, “ When I last attended the Association in Cambridge, seventeen years ago, I rode outside a stage coach : there was no railway to Cam- bridge then.” How far the efforts of the modern peripatetic philosophers, as they have been termed, have contributed to the rapid progress of modern years, is difficult to determine ’ but that an association including all the greatest luminaries of the day, with the expressed purpose of giving a stronger impulse and more systematic direction to scientific enquiry, to obtain more attention for the objects of science, and pro- mote the intercourse of all interested in its advancement, must have an immense influence on the progress of mankind 8 a fact now admitted by all, even by those who for years "outed the Association as a worthless and foolish thing. Our own art, in its various developments, has for years, Past occupied a share of the attention of different sections of the Association, the subjects being generally divided, some- "hat arbitrarily, between Section A, Mathematical and Physical Science, and Section B, Chemistry. In the pro- filings of this year, although no photographic exhibition Fas formed, as on some former occasions, photography held in the sectional meetings and elsewhere a tolerably promi- Dent position. The papers read on the subject were, in Section B, “ Description of a Rapid Dry Collodion Process,” by Mr. Thomas Sutton, B.A.; “ On a Photolithographic process, adopted by the Government of Victoria for the Publication of Maps,” by Mr. J. W. Osborne ; “ On Some of the Difficulties arising in the Practice of Photography, and the means of removing them,” by Mr. Maxwell •• Lyte, M.A., F.C.S.; “ On a Simple Method of Taking Stereo-micro-photographs," by Mr. Charles Heisch, F.C.S. In section A, M. A Claudet, F.R.S., read a paper, “ On the Means of following the small Divisions of the Scale regu- ating the Distances and Enlargement in the Solar Camera And a paper was sent by the Rev. J. B. Reade, on “ Experi- tents in Photography with Colour.” The whole of these Papers will appear in our columns in due course. At the Niree on Tuesday night, M. Claudet exhibited, by the aid 0 the oxyhydrogen light, the enlarged images of the solar Sameta. Mr. Brothers’ large group of twenty-two members o the Association, coloured in oil: some photographs and SPparatus by Ross, and by Dallmeyer, and a magnificent “isplay of Ross’s microscopes and microscopic objects, were he chief attractions of the soirees. tMr. Sutton's paper, from what we are able to glean from ose who were present at the discussion—it was read before o arrived in Cambridge—scarcely gave satisfaction, want A explicitness and want of novelty being urged against it. a imore important question to discuss is its efficiency. It RPears to us as explicit as the limits of such a paper admit. " regards the question of novelty, its chief claim would ornsist in the use of bromide and iodide in the proportion necgual atoms. The principle upon which it is based, the cessity of having two salts of silver in the sensitive film, is not new; we have constantly urged its importance, as our readers know. As regards its efficiency, that is another question. We have before us a print from a panoramic negative produced by this process, with just the same expo sure, we are assured by Mr. Sutton, as he would have given wet collodion, and indications have been obtained of still greater sensitiveness. On this subject we cannot do better than give a letter we have just received from Mr. Sutton : Dear Simpson,— I enclose you a print from a rapid dry collodion panoramic negative, taken in exactly the same time as a good wet collodion plate. The process was that described in my paper read before the British Association. You know me well enough to feel sure that 1 am not deceiving myself, or trying to deceive others, with the an nouncement that this is actually the much-wishod-for solution of the rapid dry process. I have also taken breaking waves, clouds, &c., instantaneously, upon these plates. In the course of my experiments indications have occurred of dry plates six times as sensitive as the best wet collodion. When, then, is this to stop ? I hope you will use your influence with your readers, and induce them to try this process, already so near perfection. Who will use wet collodion out of doors after this ? The plates are as certain, and quite as easy to prepare. The print is toned with a new double salt of gold, which I have called calcio-chloridc. It makes a permanent solution, and never fails in giving rich vigorous prints, such as I send. Minute particulars of the rapid dry process will be given in my book. Yours faithfully, Thomas Sutton. In the print received there is perhaps a trace of under exposure, but it is a marvellous result for a rapid dry pro cess. Of Mr. Osborne's excellent paper we cannot speak too highly : it is unquestionably the most practical paper which has been published on the subject: we shall probably have a few observations to make on it shortly. Mr. M. Lyte’s paper was, as it could not fail to be from his pen, very interesting. Some of the theories were, we fancy, untenable, but the prac tical suggestions were, however, decidedly useful, if not entirely new. The practice we have so often recommended, of washing the plate, after long exposures, with a little dis tilled water, so as to prevent stains arising from accu mulated drainage, was endorsed by Mr. Lyte. His method of preserving the printing bath from discolouration is well worthy of attention. Mr. Heisch’s short paper on a method of obtaining micro photographs for the stereoscope is at once novel and simple ; so simple as to excite surprise that it has never been thought of before. M. Claudet’s paper consists of a very clear de scription of a mathematical method of obtaining the exact conjugate focus by means of a scale for any degree of en largement. The title of Mr. Reade’s paper, “ Experiments on Photography in Colour,” will excite hopes which will be disappointed, and for the sake of his reputation, we wish he had not sent it. The specimen which accompanied the paper as an illustration of the results obtained, consisted of a collodion positive, the high lights of which exhibited that creamy tint, verging on a salmon colour, with a greenish tint, in the half tones, which every photographer has obtained a hundred times, and is, in fact, the colour commonly obtained in a certain class of negatives when just verging on solarization. Variety of colour, beyond this, there was none. All the lights of the picture were of one tint, and all the shadows of another, whether they pertained to flesh or drapery. When the paper was concluded, and the specimen examined, no word of comment was made, but each one passed the picture to
