The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 35.1891
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1891
• Sprache: Englisch
• Signatur: F 135
• Vorlage: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Rechtehinweis: Public Domain Mark 1.0
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-db-id1780948042-189100009
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18910000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18910000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

90 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. [January 30, 1891. PHOTOGRAPHING THE DEAD. The following particulars are from, a recent number of The New York Sun : — For many years the city has had photographs taken of most of the dead bodies which have been brought to the Morgue and not identified by friends or relatives within two or three days after reception. The object of this is evident. A record of the appearance of the unknown dead is thus preserved on a single sheet of paper, which is infinitely more serviceable than verbal descriptions, which might fill a volume. These records in silver and sunlight have, in hundreds of instances, led to the identification of the dead long after burial—in some cases months and years afterwards. Besides, when a photograph of an unidentified body has been secured, the body can be buried in the Potter’s Field on Hart’s Island without delay. The system is rendered practically perfect by New York’s method of burial in the Potter’s Field. A body buried there any time within the past twenty years can be recovered with certainty and without trouble. A few months ago a man called at the office of the Depart ment of Charities and Correction at Third Avenue and Eleventh Street, and asked to see President Porter. He exhibited several photographs of persons taken after death. The work manship was excellent. The man explained that he was a photographer, and had frequently been called upon by families to make pictures of their dead. His success with the work had suggested to him that he make it a specialty. He has done so, and now, after several years of experimenting, he considered himself an expert. Mr. Porter examined the portraits, and pronounced them first-class. The man then made a formal application for the work of photographing the dead of the city Morgue. “ Do you know what we pay for that work ? ” asked Mr. Porter. “Yes,” said the photographer, “you pay five dollars for each photograph.” “That is so,” said Mr. Porter, “but do you know how much it all amounts to in the course of the year ? ” “ I do not,” replied the photographer; “but I do know that your present photographer, Oscar G. Mason, manages to live in pretty good style, and does not have to do outside work. ” “ Would it surprise you to know,” asked Mr. Porter pointedly, “ that Mr. Mason’s work costs the city between $400 and $600 a year ? ” The photographer whistled softly, and was silent. Then he said that the business was very much smaller than he had supposed, but that still, at the rate of five dollars a photograph, it was well worth the doing. He said he was disappointed in the prospect, but that, nevertheless, he would press his application, and, if successful in getting the work, he would run the Morgue work in along with his outside business, and in that way make it profitable. “Very well,” said Mr. Porter, “but before you commit yourself, I will give you a few facts about Mr. Mason and his work. You evidently do not know that photographing occa sional dead bodies at five dollars each is not a tithe of the work that Mr. Mason does for us, yet it is the only work for which he gets any pay whatever. The great bulk of his time is devoted to photographing cases of disease and deformity in the hospital, surgical operations of an exceptional nature, and miscellaneous operations in various stages intended to serve as pictorial histories of the advance of surgery, and as models for the instruction of students, young physicians, and inex perienced surgeons. This high-class scientific work he throws in for nothing, contenting himself with the scanty income which comes from the occasional jobs in the Morgue, and ——. ” : “ But,” interrupted the photographer, reaching for his hat, “ why on earth does he do all that for nothing ? That is high-class work. Is not the city willing to pay him for it ? ” “ We have frequently offered to pay him for his very valu able medical and surgical photography,” said Mr. Porter, “ but he positively refuses any compensation except for the unpleasant work of photographing eighty or a hundred Morgue cases a year. He persists in this course, notwithstanding that he devotes almost his entire time to department work, and is always ready and willing to sacrifice any outside in terests to do us a service. But, to come down to the ques tion before us, if you seriously want to undertake all of Mr. Mason’s work upon his terms, you may leave your applica tion with the Commissioners, and we will consider whether it is to the interests of the city and of Bellevue Hospital to substitute you for Mr. Mason as the department photo grapher.” The photographer arose. He said simply that he withdrew his application. Then he put on his hat and left the building. He is not the only one who has applied for Mr. Mason’s job. Within the last two or three years, particularly, there have been many applications for the work of photographing the city’s unknown dead ; but every applicant has heard the same story about the city’s photographer, and, upon hearing it, has reached for his hat and abruptly left the room. ASTRONOMICAL TELESCOPES.* BY A. A. COMMON, F.R.S., TREASURER TO THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. The mounting of the reflector has been treated, if not so successfully, with more variety than in the case of the refractor, as we shall see from the pictures I will show you, especially where the Newtonian form is used. The 4-foot reflector at Melbourne is mounted on the German plan, in a similar way to a refractor, and an almost identical plan has been followed by the makers of the 4-foot at the Paris Observatory. Lassell, who was the first to mount a large reflector equatorially, used a mounting that maybe called the forked mounting, the polar axis being forked at its upper end, and the tube of the tele scope swinging between the forks ; a very excellent plan, dispensing with all counterpoising. Wishing to obtain certain conditions that I thought—and think now—favour able to the performance of the reflector, I devised a mounting where the whole tube was supported at one end on a bent arm ; a 3-foot mirror was mounted on this plan in 1879, and worked admirably. The Newtonian form demands the presence of the observer near the high end of the telescope, and the trouble of getting him there and keeping him safely close to the eye-piece is very great. As we see from the various photographs, several means have been employed to do this, none of them quite satisfactory. All the refracting telescopes of note in the world are covered by domes that eftectually protect them from the weather; these domes are in some cases comparable in cost with the instruments they cover. It is not sur prising, therefore, that efforts have been made to devise a means of getting rid of this costly dome and the long movable tube. It was suggested many years ago that a combination of plane mirrors could be used to direct light from any object into a fixed telescope. This idea in a modified form has often been used for special work, one plane mirror being used, as we see in the picture on the screen, to throw a beam of light into a telescope fixed horizon tally ; for certain kinds of work this does admirably, but the range is restricted, as can be easily seen, and the object rotates in the field of view as the earth goes round. The next step would be to place the telescope pointing parallel to the axis of the earth, and send the beam of light into it from the mirror, which could now be carried by the tube, so that by simply rotating the tube on its own * Continued from p. 51.