The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-03 00:00:00

PHOTOGRAPHY.

A correspondent of the Times, in a letter dated
Paris, Sept. 28, says : _ . .

"In no department of the Exhibition is there
more activity of mind displayed than in that which
is allotted to photographs. No recent discovery ex-
cites more curiosity and interest, nor calls into play
more ingenuity and science and taste, than this of
printing by the aid of light. The art, in all its
various processes, has become of immense import-
ance, admits of innumerable applications, and gives
employment to a host of people, many of them
highly endowed. Far more than the discovery of
the telescope, of the microscope, or of a perfect
balance, it has made a new era in science ; and in
the flue arts, also, it has exercised a prodigious in-
fluence. It is stated ou authority that Sir Henry
Jamul has already saved the British Exchequer at
least £40,000 by the use of photo-zincography in
the production of the maps of the Ordnance survey ;
and the copies of Doomsday Book now at Paris,
printed by photo-zincography, speak for the value
and beauty of the process. Photography is useful
in so many ways—in astronomy, in ethnology, in
anatomy, in botany, in architecture, inland survey-
ing, in engraving on wood and steel and copper, not
to speak of ordinary portraiture, that no modern art
can be said more truly to live than this ; and few of
us who visit the French Exhibition can form an ade-
quate idea of the vast amount of scientific research
and mechanical industry which are represented by
the hundreds of photographic pictures and appa-
ratus that meet our view. An index of patents
relating to photography alone tells us that down to
the end of the year 1859 upwards of 190 separate
patents had been granted in England ; and since
that period the number has been enormously in-
creased. This, however, gives a very insufficient
idea of the energy with which the wonderful art is
pursued ; for, in point of fact, the most important
discoveries in photography have not been protected
by the patent laws. Thus, the collodion process—a
process by which nine-tenths of all the photographs
in all countries are now produced—was made known

freely to the public by its originator. So likewise the
essential principles of all the various carbon pro-
cesses of ptinting were announced by their dis-
coverers without any attempt to secure their rights
by patent. So long ago as December, 1827, M. Nie-
pce, then living at Kew, submitted to the Royal
Society some pictures taken on silvered copper plates
smeared with the bitumen of Judea, a substance
which is soluble in certain essential oils, but not so
after exposure to light. Specimens of his skill are
in existence as perfect in appearance as on the day
on which they were produced. There is the begin-
ning of the carbon process. On the 29th of May,
1839, Mr. Mungo Ponton made a communication
to the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, to the effect
that bicromate of potash applied to paper in solu-
tion accepted a photographic image which could not
be removed by water, the portions protected from
the light being readily washed away. There is a step
in advance. In January of the last mentioned year
M. Daguerre in France, and Mr. Fox Talbot in
England, had each made public their independent
discoveries of the daguerreotype and the talbotype."