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163 Zotes. Mr. Spiller is making a chemical examination of brown mounting boards, and will publish the results of his re search in these columns next week. It will be remembered that some of these mounts have acquired a very bad reputation, and special attention was called to them at Edinburgh last month by Mr. Marshall Wane and others; it is high time, therefore, that their character should be enquired into. Mr. Walter Woodbury sends us a delicate cabinet por trait, produced by his photo-relief process modified by himself. His modification, he believes, will permit the process to be worked universally, and without much expen diture in apparatus or plant. There have been several attempts lately to take photo graphs of theatrical scenery, but our readers may not be aware that theatrical scenery is sometimes taken from photographs. A burlesque of “ William Tell,” produced a short time back at the Gaiety Theatre, contained a very charming glacier scene, which was painted from one of Mr. England’s photographs of Swiss scenery. “ Their photographs are finer than the English, because the air is so very much clearer over there,” is a criticism of foreign pictures that every photographer is familiar with. Even Mr. Lansdell, the other night at the Photo graphic Society, although he proved himself an able critic in many respects, could not refrain from uttering the hack neyed phrase. And yet, if British photographers shine at all, it is precisely in landscape work that they have made a mark, and because of the atmosphere of their pic tures. So there must be a mistake somewhere. We, for our part, explain the reason of British supremacy in land scape work to the fact that the English lenses that are generally employed abroad are not used to the climate, and do not operate so fairly in a foreign atmosphere. At any rate, this reason is as good as the other. In Berlin a patent liquid is sold in small bottles, at the price of a shilling, for removing nitrate of silver stains from the skin or from linen. It is called Antiargehtine, and though its composition is as yet a secret, it is guaranteed not to contain potassium cyanide. The following curious observation, which recalls the phenomena notiped by Niepce de St. Victor, has been communicated to the Liege Section of the Photographic Association of Belgium by M. Laoureux. If two gelatine plates, one of which only has received an impression in the camera, be placed face to face at a distance of about half a millimetre, and left in that position for a short time in the dark, both, on development, will be seen to bear the image. They are, in fact, two negatives of equal intensity, one, of course, being the reverse of the other. We alluded the other day to a photograph of Kew Church, obtained by the bitumen process by Nieephore Niepce, the first authentic picture secured in the camera in this country. This was Niepce’s plan of working, as described in his own words:—“ I first take a metal plate, either of tin, copper, or silver (but I prefer the first), and this I coat with a film of bitumen of Judea, which is sensi tive to light; I then expose the plate in the camera, and afterwards wash it in oil of almonds, to render the pic ture visible. I also use iodine to render the image more black.” Now, here is something to think about. Niepce, it is well known, entered into a partnership with Daguerre— in fact, the deed of partnership is still extant—and they worked together for two years, when Niepce died. How far was Daguerre indebted to Niepce for Daguerreotype? As described by Daguerre, the process is divided into four operations 1, to clean the metal plate ; 2, to render it sensitive; 3, to expose it in the camera ; and, 4, to deve lop the image. But whether Daguerre took any hint or no from Niepce, who certainly talks of the employment of metal plates and the use of iodine, it is very obvious that Niepce, by his bitumen process, secured a permanent pic ture in the camera long before Daguerre succeeded in doing so. We are glad to see that Mr. Werge announces another edition of Jabez Hughes’s “ Principles and Practice of Photography.” A simple shilling hand-book of photo graphy is a great desideratum. It is not so easy to varnish a map or diagram as some people believe. If the plan is of paper, it should be care fully stretched, and then a solution of isinglass applied by means of a brush. Very little should be put on at a time, for if there is a surfeit, or the paper gets wavy, brown ridges are the result. Isinglass is better than gelatine, because it is usually more colourless, but good gelatine does very well. When perfectly dry, the gelatinous cover ing receives a coating of varnish; paper or any transparent photographic varnish will do. A map or plan treated in this way will bear washing. The Paris apparatus makers are busying themselves to devise a means of developing gelatine plates in the day light ; already an apparatus of the kind exists in this country—elaborated, we think, by Mr. Werge—but we have no personal experience of it. No doubt, if a practical developing box, or something of the kind, could be devised for gelatine plates, it would find a sale among photographers, and amateurs especially ; but the worst of it is, apparatus of the kind is apt to degenerate into mere toys, which are quite inconsistent with serious work, and are only likely to find purchasers among novices in the art; and Paris makers, unfortu nately, are usually connected with such technical play- Things,