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February 27, 1891.] THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. gauge was fixed upon an oxygen cylinder, and, from the fused appearance of the various fragments of metal and glass which resulted from its disruption, it is believed that, by some means, great heat must have been generated. Possibly this was akin to the air friction which causes a meteor, in its passage through our atmosphere, to become white hot. It seems certain that the accident could not have been brought about by any admixture of the oxygen with hydrogen, for we are told that a blow-through jet was in use at the time. It is not, however, stated whether the same guage had not been employed a few minutes before to record the pressure in a cylinder of hydrogen. Messrs. Newton and Co., of Fleet Street, in com menting upon this occurrence, point out that such accidents must occasionally occur as gauges wear out— not a very comforting piece of information for lime light workers ; but they also give some valuable hints whereby danger from such accidents may be reduced to a minimum. This is what they say:—“There should be no cast iron in the gauge; the tubes and works should be mounted on a brass or gunmetal frame. The glass covering the dial should be mounted in a ring, fitting on the body of the gauge like a cap. When the gauge is in use this cap should be removed, thus avoiding all danger from the broken pieces of glass. The gauge should then be closed in a brass wire cage, so that should the tube burst, any portions of metal would be caught by the wire network, and if not stopped altogether, would, at any rate, be rendered harmless.” Mr. Fowler, a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, who thought he had discovered that a Lyr was a double star, has not yet got rid of the trouble in which the alleged discovery has involved him. The duplicity was revealed to Mr. Fowler by means of a photograph in which the lines of the star were doubled, and he forthwith read a paper on the subject at the Society. Unfortunately for Mr. Fowler, Professor Vogel, of the Potsdam University, and the Brothers Henry at Paris, had also photographed this particular star, and not a trace of duplicity could they discover ; whereupon Mr. Fowler had to own that his conclusions, owing to some cause which he could not determine, must have been erroneous. At the last meeting of the Astronomical Society a paper by Professor Vogel was read, in which he went fully into the matter, and showed that not only must Mr. Fowler’s photographs have been erroneous, but that his calculations were also wrong. Mr. Fowler’s answer to this was looked forward to with much interest; but all he could say was that he felt bound to acknowledge that a Lyrae Was not a double star, and that ho had no explmation to offer as to the discrepancy between his photographic observations and those of Professor Vogel. Mr. Fowler had a sufficient reason for his inability to offer an explanation of the differences in the fact that the weather since November had been so bad that he had not been able to obtain any photographs, or to test the adjustments of his photographic instruments; but he was not so happy in his explanation as to the inaccuracies in the calculations; indeed, he said nothing at all on the matter until Capt. Noble drew attention to it and enquired, drily, whether they used Walking ham’s arithmetic at South Kensington, or whether they calculated according to Cocker there, as the discrepancy was very great. Mr. Fowler, in reply, said that he worked out his figures by the graphical method, and laid no claim to great accuracy, also that it now remained for him to determine why the doubling of the lines was special to the instrument he employed; and so the matter remains. The moral of the incident is, that photographic observations 1 are made up of so many elements that it is unsafe to rely upon any single result until it has been verified by repeated experiments. The alleged doubling of a Lyras bids fair to be a precedent which astronomical photographers will do well to bear in mind. Mrs. French Sheldon, the adventurous woman who is to put Stanley in the shade, has extensive views of photography. She lately told an interviewer that she takes with her eight or nine cameras, so as not to be beaten if the one or other fails her. If Mrs. Sheldon is similarly prudent in regard to other requirements, what an amount of baggage she will have! By the way, it is to be hoped that she is a little more thorough with regard to photography than she is as to astro nomy. One of the studies which interests her, and which she hopes to make, is that of the constellations only seen in the southern skies; but she has had no time to take lessons in astronomical science, and con tents herself with a few hints from Mrs. Richard Proctor. If Mrs. Sheldon has only had time to get a few “hints” in photographic manipulation, her eight or nine cameras may prove a thorn and a burden. Photography—like beer, which, according to Mr. Richard Swiveller, cannot be tasted in a sip—cannot be mastered by a hint. According to a report of the latest edition of Mr. Muybridge’s lecture on the movements of the horse, his opinion is that photography is an especial help to artists in assisting them to have a larger knowledge of nature in movement. His theory is that the ungrace ful attitudes of animals need not be represented, but, at the same time, care should be taken not to fall into faults which, without hurting the eye, yet are not true to nature. This is just where the difficulty comes in. The artist—that is to say, the artist of the con ventional school—is at one end of the scale, and Mr. Muybridge with his instantaneous photographs is at the other. The question is how the two extremes are to meet. Up to the present the subject has not been fully dealt with in the spirit of compromise. What is wanted is the happy medium which, while not losing sight of what may be termed the grace of art, yet imparts the spirit of nature as represented by instan taneous photography.