The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1878-09-12
Some Uses Of Photography.
THarper's Weekly

Some Uses Of Photography.
IHarper's Weekly
Not only does photography reproduce
with absolute perfection details which
the most scrupulous eye-work could not
trace without errors, but it actually
what is invisible; the sensitive plate
receives impressions which altogether
escape the human eye. Thus, a French
ambassador in Greece, Baron Gross, who
used to amuse himself with photography,
took one day a view of the Acropolis.
He never looked at it again till he was
back in Paris; and then, examining it
with the microscope, he was astonished
to find ON a stone in the foreground the
figure of a lion ~devouring a serpent,
in the very earliest style of Greek art.
Here was something which none of the
antiquarians, who have counted every
stone in the old temple of Pallas Athene,
had ever noticed; the sun had found it
out, and the Frenchman's photograph
had made it evident to the eyes of the
men. 1t is the same with MSS. The
parts that have through age and damp
become illegible stand out in the photo
graphic copy as strongly marked as the
rest. Ink gets yellow with tune; the
peroxide o firol, which gives it its color
ing, is gradually oxidized until even a
magnifying glass can trace nothing on
the parchment; but the chemical effect
remains; the ink, which has become in
visible, still has power to diminish the
susceptibility to light of those parts OF
which it was laid; and so the writing,
which had long since disappeared, comes
out black and legible by the aid of the
Gamers.
This use of photography is very valu-
able to the classical scholar. 1t gives
him a chance of recovering the MSS. of
Greek and Roman authors whose works
were supposed to have persisted. Be
sides the burning of libraries like that
of Alexandria, and the natural decay
when rolls of parchments we're stored for
safety in damp cellars, there was, all
through the Dark Ages, q cruel custom
Of taking classical MSS. and usingsthe
parchment up again, after rubbing off
the ink as far as possible with pumice-
stone. Thus, if a new account-book was
wanted, and the monastery funds were
low, instead of buying a few e skins,
Brother Paulus, sub-prior and bursar,
thought he was doing a very clever
thing by diving into the library and
picking out a volume containing, per-
haps, the now lost books of Livy; per-
hapshalfa dozen Greek plays : any thing,
except, of course, the writings of the
fathers and those of Aristotle, whom,
somehow, the medieval school-men had
come to look upon with as much rever-
ence as if he had been a father of the
Church. The said volume was handed
over to a serving brother, who washed
it, pumiced it, and got rid as wholly as
he could of the ungoldly writing which
it was a pious work to render illegible.
This sort of thing went on most vigor.
ously Just before the discovery or intro
duction from the East of p~aper-making
for, of course, as civilization advanced,
the uses of parchment and vellum mul
tiplied much more rapidly than sheep
and calves did. So it comes to pass that
in almost every monastery there are
some of these palimpsests-ie. rescraped
parchments-on which bills and ex'
penses, or monastic and theological rub
bish, covers something for which scholars
have perhaps long been vainly search
ing. Such palimpsests have hitherto
been treated with acids of various kinds
toget rid of the newink, and then dipped
in a solution of tannin to bring out, il
possible, the old writing. All this wash
ing, however, too often had the effect O.
making the whole hopelessly illegible
whereas photography does away witt
the need of it. In the sun picture
the efaced original comes out often a
clearly as that which wa written after
ward; and then, of course, it is no very
difficult task to read between the lines
But this application of photography i
useful not to the scholar only, but to thu
respondent, or to any n who wants t
send letters that nobody else can read
If you write with a solution of sulphat'
of %quinine, the paper will look like
blank sheet over which fly has traced
I few very faint marks; you may safel,
send it even by way Of Russian head
quarters, unless, indeed, there is a pho
, tographer there who knows the secret
In that case he has only to take a sui
copy of your seemingly blank sheet, ant
!, what you wrote becomes as legible as tn
! old Sympathetic ink" OF our grand
, mothers used to when held before tn
fire, Bankers, too, may sometimes fin
] it convenient to have doubtful check
, photographed. However carefully tn
, original amount may have been washe
' out, the sun will bring it up again to tn
i confusion of the forger. As for doctors
). it may be worth their while now an,
then to photograph their patients whe
, they suspect there is any eruptive diseas
not yet visible. Mr.. 81. Vogel, of Bel
lin, cites the case of a lady who had a
> !, ways Gas the phrase is) "taken we'll.
She "came OUT one day all over littl
black spots. The photographer ws
blamed-his chemical must have bee
> bad, or the plate could not have bee
properly cleaned. Two days later, how
. ever, it became clear that the lady ha
smallpox; in fact, she died of it 500
after. Yellow, as every one know
comes out black in the sur. picture, s
: her face must have been covered wit
. very faint yellow spots before any ey
, could trace the least mark upon the ski
\ The Literary Career.
I The Philadelphia Bulletin says tbs
z Young persons who feel the literary in