The Red Cloud chief., 1877-12-13
Can We Ever Photograph COlOrs?

Every lnqulsltlve person who ha ever
| gone behind a photographers camera to
admire the sharply defined and beauti-
fully colored image focused upon the
| plate has wondered whether science
would finally succeed in Selling and fix.
ing the tints there exhibited, as it has
succeeded ir fixing the lights and shades.
In the fitn ess of things it seems as if
this ought to be achieved, sooner Or
later. For forty years we have been
making the sun draw pictures in black
and white. This, from an u%nscientific
point of view, was the great problem.
TO make the sui paint the pictures
which it draws, and copy nature in col
or al well as in form, would seem to
follow necessarily in the development
of the art, and the discOveryOf amethod
ought to be only a question of time.
If there is truth in a statement which
is now going the rounds of the news.
papers, credited to the London Stan
dard, the process of phOtOgraphing in
natural colors has not only been discOv-
cred, but is actually practiced in Eng
land. The art is called Photography.
The patentee is a Mr.. lombard, and he
and an American Associate have brO't
the invention to a basis of practical
utility. In other words, they are max
ing money out of it.
1t is not surprising that the announce.
ment of a discovery of such radical
importance as Mr.. LOmbardi's should
attract attention and excite interest
among laymen. But before fully &C.
cepting the statement as fact, and cred
ting MI. Lombard with an achieve.
ment that ought to place his name in
history beside those of Daguerre and
Talbot, it will be we'll to take several
things into account. Three or four times
a year We Rad Of the discovery of per-
petual motion. Once in a while We are
told that the squaring of the circle has
been accomplished. Descriptions of a
machine that goes of itself have long
since ceased to awaken enthusiasm
among physicists. Mathematical pro-
fessors hear of the squaring of the Cir
Gle without manifesting undue exulta-
ton. They know, in the first instance,
that there cannot be perpetual motion,
and they know, furthermore. why itcan
not be sQuared. Thus fortified with gen.
eral principles, they are prepared to lis
ten with quiet amusement to any num-
Der of rumOrs of the impossible.
As physicists regard perpetual mo-
ton and as mathematicians regard the
squaring of the circle, so practical pho
tographers and scientific men generally
regard the prospect of photographing in
cOlors. They know that it cannot be
done. If anybody claims to do it, they
Immediately set him down as either a
lunatic or a quack.
The story which the London Standard
has let loose from the limbo of exploded
canards is at least thirty five years old.
1t has its origin in the experience of a
distinguished man Of science. About
the year 1910, Sir John Herschel. in ex.
p~erimenting with a prism and a camera,
found that when he received the solar
spectrum upon silver chloride, the neg
alive displayed several faint but dis
tinct hues. 1t vas %thereupon reported
that the great discovery had been made.
Unfortunately. however, the cOlors in
the neg alive failed to correspond with
those of the spectrum, and repeated ex.
periments failed to show any law of
non-correspondence. Herschel quickly
found that the phenomenon was due
entirely to an accidental circumstance.
MOI long after this, a French savant, NJ.
Neipee, announced q similar discovery,
upon accidental conditions. In neither