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February 20, 1880.] THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. 91 Zotes. Professor Hermann Vogel, of Berlin, and Herr Fritz Luckardt, of Vienna, will shortly contribute “ Topics.” At the Government Map establishment at Vienna, photo graphy has entirely superseded engraving. The maps are sketched in Indian ink on paper, and transferred by photo graphy to stone or metal. The first photograph taken in the camera in this country of which we have any record was of Kew Church, in 1827 or 1828, by Nicephore Niepce, and this historical picture, according to one of the best—if not the best— living authority, Mr. Robert Hunt, F.R.S., should exist to this day in the British Museum. The date is fixed by the residence in this country of Nicephore Niepce, who lived at Kew. There is a story attached to this photograph which is well worth repeating. In 1828 Nipce went to the Royal Society of London and asked permission to lay the results of his invention before them, but the Society, through their Secretary, declined the proposal unless Niepce com municated all the details of his process. This the French philosopher refused to do, and relationSjWere broken off. Years afterwards, when Daguerre’s invention was declared through the length and breadth of the land, a sun pic ture was shown to Faraday at the Royal Institution, with the remark that he had never seen anything of the sort before : “ Yes, I have,” said Faraday ; “ I was shown a picture of Kew Church by a Frenchman, who told me 1 it took itself.’ ” The Kew Church picture was taken with bitumen of Judea, as we know, while Daguerre’s photograph was upon silver, and, therefore, very different; but Faraday’s testimony, added to that of Mr. Bauer, the Secretary of the Royal Society, did much in influencing the French Government to grant a pension to the son of Niepce, at the same time that Daguerre was accorded that honour. Daguerreotype portraits of Daguerre are very rare, but Alderman Mayall, of Brighton, is the fortunate possessor of a very good one. The Russian Imperial Astronomer has had some diffi culty in getting a lens of suitable size for a big telescope he has, measuring something like three feet in calibre. The lens has been cast by Feil, of Paris, and sent to America—to Alvan Clark—to be ground. One of these days we shall have a story called “The Adventures of a Lens.” The Scientific American quotes at full length our recent remarks on the subject of banknote forgeries, and is in clined to believe, with us, that it is more difficult to counterfeit finely engraved black-and-white cheques like those of the Bank of England, than one faced with a coloured pattern. In Mr. Friswell’s paper, which will form our “ Topic ” for next week, that chemist describes a mode of valuing pyrogallic acid which has not yet been published. We were talking the other day of the practice of photo- graphy among Royalty. It is not generally known that the Emperor of Brazil is a man of considerable scientific attainments, and, on a recent visit to this country, spent some time in Mr. Baden Pritchard’s Photographic Estab lishment at the Royal Arsenal. The emperor was par ticularly interested in carbon printing, and followed the process from first to last with great interest. A collection of photographs representing the present sta te of the art in Great Britain was made for him by Mr. Pritchard. The award of the Paget prize of £50 for the best dry process still hangs fire. It is a twelvemonth since Captain Paget so generously placed this sum at the disposal of the Photographic Society, immediately before the great im pulse was given to gelatine work. The employment of bichromate of potash in size for coating walls is frequently made use of on the Continent. In a word, you apply a film of bichromated gelatine, and this gets photographed or rendered insoluble by light. The insoluble film is said to be a good protection in the case of damp walls. The use of bichromated gelatine in this way will call to mind its employment in connection with the famous pea sausage during the Franco-German war. The supply of skin failed altogether in the face of the great demands for Erbswurst, and the food, after pressing into shapes, was, for an alternative, dipped into bichromated gelatine, and ex posed to the action of light. In this way the famous sausages were covered with an impermeable skin with very little trouble. The Philadelphia Photographer has addressed to its readers a circular-letter containing thirteen queries, asking “ How business is, and what of it?” Our contemporary is now busy printing the answers to these queries, which demon strate, says the editor, “ that good times are now on hand.” Professor Hermann Vogel, of Berlin, contributes an im portant paper to our columns this week, in which he goes far to prove that one of the lines observed by Lockyer in his “dissociation experiment with calcium” is but a hydrogen line, after all. Talking about Lockyer’s experiments, which seemed to favour the idea that instead of many elements we possessed but very few, and the apparent confirmation of this view by Victor Meyer, who recently told us that chlorine was not an element, since it was capable of giving off oxygen, we may remark that this last matter seems to lack con firmation ; in other words, it is possible that Herr Meyer, carefully as he conducted the experiment, is hardly justi fied, as yet, in declaring that chlorine is not an element. Therefore we have still to wait for the Deluge.