The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-03 00:00:00

TliE DISCO

The subjoined deeply interesting account of the dis-
covery of Collodion will be read, we doubt not, with
peculiar, because very melancholy satisfaction, now that
the discoverer, Mr. Scott Archer, has breathed his last
so very recently and so very prematurely. We extract
the passages here following from the really charming
essay upeu Photography adorning the newly-pub-
lished number of the Quarterly Review, And
we do so the more eagerly because, apart from the
attraction of the subject itself, it may serve, practically
serve, by means of this separate quotation, materially
to forward the subscriptions now being raised in behalf
of the young family left behind him by this gifted and
lamented gentleman. A subscription list, generously
headed by her most gracious Majesty with a donation
twenty guineas ; and to which another donation of 501.
has already been added by the Photographic Society of
the Metropolis. The Quarterly reviewer observes :
" The world was full of the praise of the daguerreo-
type, but Mr. Cundeil stood forth .as the advocate of
the calotype or paper process, pointed out its greater
simplicity and inexpensiveness of apparatus, its infinite
superiority in the power of multiplying its productions,
and then proceeded to give those careful directions for
the practice, which, though containing no absolutely
new element, yet suggested many a minute correction
where every minutia is important. Wiela the increasing
band of experimentalists who arose—for all photogra-
phers are such—now ensued the demand for some mate-
rial on which to receive their pictures less expensive
than the silver plate, and less capricious than paper.
However convenient as a medium, thie latter, from the
miscellaneous nature of its antecedents, was the prolific
parent of disappointment. Numerous expedients were
resorted to render it more available—it was rubbed,
polished, and waxed, but, nevertheless, blotches and
discolourations would perpetually appear, and that at
the very moment of success, which sorely tried the pho-
tographic heart. The Journal of the Society sends up
at this time one vast cry of distress on this subject, one
member calling unto another for help against the com-
mon enemy. Under these circumstances many a long-
ing eye was fixed upon glass as a substitute; an•l nume-
rous experiments, among, which thoie by Sir John
Herschel were the earliest and most successful, were
tried to render this material available. But glass itself
was found to be an intractable material; it has no powers
of absorption, and scarcely any affinities; The one thing
evidently needed was to attach some transparent neutral
coating of extreme tenuity to its snrface, and in due
time the name of Niepce again appears supplying the
intermediate step between failure and' success. M.
Niepce de St. Victor, nepheiti to the iriveritor of helio-
graphy, sir known as the' author •-eef .the albumen
process, which transparent and adhesive substance
being applied to glass., and excited with the same
chemical agents as in the calotype process, is found to
produce pictures of great beauty and finish. But, inge-
nious as is the process, and often as it is still used, it fails
of that unsurpassable fitness which alone commands
universal adoption. The amalgamation of the snbstances
is tedious and complicated, and the action of the light
much slower. The albumen process was a great step, and
morever a step in the right direction ; for it pointed on-
ward to that discovery which has reduced the difficulties
of the art to the lowest sum, and raised its powers, in
one respect at all events, to the highest possibility, viz.
to the use of collodion. The Daguerre to this Niepce
was a countryman of our own—Mr. SCOTT ARCEIER—
who is entitled to fame not only for this marvellous
improvement, but for the generosity with. which he threw
it open to the public. The character of the agent, too,
adds interest to the invention. The birth and parentage
of collodion are both among the recent wonders of the
age. Gun-cotton—partly a French, partly a German
discovery—is but a child in the annals of chemical
science ; and collodion, which is a solution of this com-
pany in ether and alcohol, is its offspring. Its first
great use was, as is well known, in the service of sur-
gery ; its second in that of photography. Not only did
the adoption of this vehicle at once realise the desires of
the most ardent photographer—not only, thus applied,
did it provide a film of perfect transparency, tenuity,
and intense adhesiveness—not only was it found easy of
manipulation, portable and preservable—but it supplied
that element of rapidity which more than anything else
has given the miraculous character to the art. Under
the magician who first attempted to enlist the powers of
light in his service, the sun seems at best to have been
but a sltiggard ; under the sorcery of Niepce be became
a drudge in a twelve-hours' factory. On the prepared
plate of Daguerre and on the sensitive paper of Fox
Talbot the great luminary concentrates his gaze for a
few earnest minutes ; with the albumen-sheathed glass
he takes his time more leisurely still ; but at the delicate
film of collodion—which hangs before him finer than any
fairy's robe, and potent only with invisible spells—be
literally does no more than wink his eye, tracing in that
moment, with a detail and precision beyond all human
power, the glory of the heavens, the wonders of the deep.
the fall, not of the avalanche, but et the apple, the most
fleeting smile of the babe, and the most vehement action
of the man.
" Further than this the powers of photography can
never go ; they are already more nimble than we need.
Light is made to portray with a celerity only second to
that with which it travels ; it has been difficult to con-
trive the machinery of the camera to keep pace with
it, and collodion has to be weakened in order to clog its
wheels."
As we briefly intimated in our impression of Monday,
the Committee Room of this nobly deserved Testimonial
[mark the words we have printed in italics in the above
quotation f] is at No. 226, Regent-street, where Sir
William Newton, R.A., has generously undertaken the
office of treasurer. _ '' •

THE COOLIE TB ADE.. -;E'2 BAORDINA:NY
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