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1862. f twenty ie picture oured of. leveolpet is of hd strength combin I. properlf develor shadows ows wer sity, half ng of ti‘ agreed I rat tan is is full idred a’ of the 0 ty secob’ y secon® mid to ! des whi us drop 1 ' in ap “ fossi ise the" dry, all ' discuss* 5 preparl eloped V ien he " so on so* in an । •nd no* nuch ” tisfied’ ade 1V ho wJ i fors?® id wit)) ho weh. ot free" , in deti uid coin' ed boll 1. Sir 1‘ y been paper," n be pr sity of printins ill k % three 0 the lib, ncogrf' f "Dow iast wb?, opies o s been% letailed ) io prod terrier ° in the , s said 10 April 4, 1862.] THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. 165 Aroreedings of Sotieties. coat the Government £38,000 ; the types were destroyed by a fire in 1800, and copies are so expensive and so rare, that few can either buy or even refer to one. But now, through this aimpie and inexpensive process, and by publishing in parts, any one can purchase the portion relating to the county in which ho is more particularly interested, generally for 8s. or 10s., and the Government will not be put to any cost whatever. Authentic copies would be made of such documents as are required to be deposited in the public Record-office, and it is said that this would probably save an expenditure of £10,000 a-year. The process is about to be introduced in India and in Canada. A proposition is under consideration for sending a photographer to Simancas, in Spain, to copy some of the despatches in cypher deposited in the Royal archives there, and which are supposed “ relate to important events, some time before and after the reign of Elizabeth. London PIOTOGRAPIIIC Society. Tire usual monthly meeting of the Photographic Society was Md on the evening of Tuesday, April 1st. J, GLAISHER, Esq., F.R.S., in the chair. The minutes of the previous meeting having been read and confirmed, The Chairman said that at the last meeting of the society it had been intimated that any gentleman who obtained informa tion as to a suitable place for an exhibition of photographs, was desired to communicate with the secretary. No information on the subject had reached the secretary. The matter had been again discussed in council, and a determination had been come to that a committee should bo appointed, to make enquiries and report. This committee was to consist of Messrs. Claudet, Vernon Heath, and Shadbolt. Lieut.-Col. Stuart Wortley and Horatio Nelson King wore elected members of the society. A series of photographs of the eclipse of Dec. 31st, by Mr. Tucker, of Trinidad, taken at Guapo,* were exhibited by Mr. G. Wharton Simpson. Dr. Diamond, the Secretary, said it had been suggested that this society should take some active steps in petitioning die House of Commons in the interest of photography, so as to strengthen the hands-of the promoters of the new Copyright Pill. He had written to the Chief Baron on the subject, and had subsequently seen him. The Chief Baron thought that the end would be better served by a personal interview with ‘he Solicitor General, who had charge of the Bill; he accord- ingly saw him, and explained to him fully the claims of photo- graphy in connection with the Bill. It appeared that many Photographers had written to the Solicitor General, intimating 'hat photographers did not desire that their art should bo inclu- in the protection of the intended Act. These gentlemen, Appeared, were those who lived by pirating the works of Ms. Members were probably aware that the Bill had been Tdda third time, and had passed the House of Commons the PNious evening. •y. England then read an interesting paper on dry plates, th a few remarks on instantaneous wet plates. The dry PrOcess he preferred was the tannin, with a modification of his 0Nn, by which he had been able to secure a rapidity equal to Pat of ordinary wet collodion, with pyrogallic acid develop- nent. The chief peculiarity of this process consisted in the 188 of a very largo proportion of bromide in the collodion, and I the use of honey with the tannin, the preservative solution Containing 15 grains of each to an ounce of water. Plates so Prepared would keep six months without deterioration. Wo noPLtr 8ive Mr. England’s paper in its entirety in an early . During the reading of this paper, a number of the exquisite instantaneous negatives of Paris were handed round for the msPection of members. They wore especially distinguished used ' CaC /' purity, and freedom from fog. The dark slide I . in obtaining instantaneous exposures was also shown, nrstoador having a shutter attached to the lens, Mr. England Prmrs.to have it attached to the dark slide. It consists of a e , having a longitudinal slot the whole breadth of the * See PaoroGnapnic NEws, p, 133, vol. v., March 21st, 1862. plates, which on passing over the plate as the guillotine descends, gives the exposure. The width, or rather depth, of the slot can be adjusted at will, an aperture of about one inch being the least which could with advantage be used. A number of Mr. England’s very perfect instantaneous views of Paris were laid on the table, and received much admiration. Mr. Shadbolt thought the shutter exhibited was a consi derable improvement on those usually employed for obtaining instantaneous exposures, inasmuch as it did not cut off the rays from a portion of the lens; but allowed the full action of the whole of the lens all the time. He remembered that Mr. Kibble, who was the first to take instantaneous pictures on dry plates, had a somewhat similar motion, but it moved in a lateral direction, being carried along by india-rubber springs, and ho always liked the motion of the shutter to be in the opposite direction to that of objects in motion in the subject to be taken, so that they might receive the shortest possible exposure. Most of the members present were, doubtless, aware that Dr. Draper had been making use of tannin plates in America for instan taneous purposes. Perhaps American ideas of instantaneous exposures were not quite so precise as those in this country; but, at any rate, it would appear that pictures had been ob tained with an exposure of a very few seconds. The method employed for shortening the exposure was the use of heat in developing. Probably, if heat were used in conjunction with plates prepared by Mr. England’s method, very great rapidity would be obtained. The effect of the honey would, doubtless, bo to keep open the pores in the film of collodion, which, as Dr. Hill Norris had shown, was an important element in rapidity. Mr. England had tried heat in developing his plates, and had found that it caused the film to crack and leave the plate, which an edging of varnish did not in that case prevent. If it were not for that he had no doubt but that the exposure might be considerably shortened. The Chairman thought that the discovery of an instan taneous dry process would be one of the greatest achievements yet effected in photography, and hopeless as such a thing had at one time appeared, recent events seemed to render it by no means impossible. Ho felt sure the meeting would readily ex press their thanks to Mr. England for his contributions in that direction, and for his interesting paper. Thanks were carried by acclamation. Mr. Shadbolt said ho had been requested by Dr. Carpenter to bring before the attention of the meeting a photographic copy of Chimenti's pictures, regarding which the recent discus sion with Sir David Brewster had occurred. Ho regretted that there was not a stereoscope present; but he might state that he had himself carefully examined the pictures both with a stereo scope and without, and although in that instrument they did appear to present a certain amount of relief, they certainly did not appear to him to have been drawn by any one acquainted with the principles of binocular vision. Some parts only had relief, whilst others were either pseudoscopic or simply confused. The perpendicular lines did not coincide any more than the lateral lines, and many parts showed discrepancy altogether incon sistent with stereoscopic principles. Evon if they had been much more perfect than they were, it did not prove that they were drawn with any knowledge of stereoscopic principles, for as Dr. Carpenter had pointed out, they might have been drawn from the same model simultaneously by two persons differently stationed, and thus getting different points of view. Mr. England said when ho was at Lille he had soon the originals. They appeared to him to have been one traced from the other, the slight alterations in drawing seeming to arise from not carefully following the traced outline in colouring. Ho had the power of viewing stereoscopic pictures stereoscopi- cally without an instrument. These pictures in the original did not appear to him to bo stereoscopic. Professor Macdonald said ho was present at Edinburgh when Sir David Brewster brought forward his paper. He had obtained a copy of the photographs of this picture, which he had not yet separated, so as to examine them in the stereo scope. He suggested as a reason why some persons appeared to see these pictures stereoscopically, whilst others failed to do so, that there was a great deal of difference in the physical or ganization of different persons, and that some persons from organization had groat difficulty in obtaining the effect of ste- reoscopicity. The Chairman said as regarded the two eyes of some per sons each having a different focus, that was really the rule, and
