Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1878-10-03
Some Uses Of Photography.
Not only does photography re-
oduco with absolute perfection do.

Ptoo"So "tsb spcoiubS pcTitCttuu uos
tails which The most SEA ii i ulous eye.
work could not trace without errors.
hni 1t actually sees wha, Is invisible;
the sensitive late receives impress.
sions which altogether escapes the
hu man eye. Thus, a French AM
bassador in Greece, Baron Gros, who
used TO amuse himself with photog-
raphy, took one day view Of the
Acropolis. He never looked a., ii
again till he was back in Paris; aud
then, examining il with the micro
scope, he was astonished to find on a
stone in the foreground the figure OF
lion dew nring serpent, ia tho
very earliest style of Greek art.
Here was something which bono IF
the antiquarisns, who have counted
every stone in the old temple of Pal
las Athene, bad ever noticed; the sun
bad found II out, and the Freneh-
mans photograph had made il esi.
den, to the eyes of men. Ii is tho
same with MSS. The parts that
have through age and damp become
illegible stand out in the photograph
lie copy as strongly marked as the
rest. Ink gets yellow with time;
the peroxide ofiron, which gives it
its coloring, is gradually oxidized
until even msgniiying. glass can
trace nothing on the parchment; but
the chemical effect remains; the ink,
which has become invisible, still has
power 10 diminish tho susceptibility
to light of those parts on which il
was laid; aud so the writing, which
had long since disappeared, comes
out black and leglble by the aid of
the camera.
This use of photography is very
valuable TO the classical scholar. Ii
gives him chance of recovering tho
MSS of Greek and Roman authors
whose works were supposed to have
persisted. Besides the Burning of
libraries like that of Alexandria, and
the natural decay when rolls of
parohments were stored for safety in
damp cellars. there was, all through
the Dark Ages, crueleustom eftak-
ing classical MSS. and using the
parchment up again, alter rubbing
off The ink as far as possible with
pumice. stone Thus, if new &C.
count book was wanted, ard the mon
astery funds were low, instead of
buying few now skins, Brother
Paulus, sub. prior ard bursar, thought
he was doing very cluver hing by
diving into tho library and picking
oas volume containing. perhaps,
the now lost books Of Livy; perhaps
bali dCzsn Crock ,lays--any thing.
except, of course, the writings of tho
fathers and those of Aristotle, whom,
somehow, the medieval schOol.men
had come TO look upon with as much
reverence as if he had been a father
of the Church. The said volume
was handed over to a serving broth
err, who washed it, pumiced it, and
got rid as wholly az he could of the
ungodly writing which it was pious
work to render illegible.
This sort of thing went on most
vigorously just before the discovery
or introduction FRI n the East OF pa
per-making; for, If course, as ciVili-
cation advanced, the uaea of parch-
ment and vellum multiplied much
moro rapidly than sheep and calves
did. 50 IT comes TO pass that in al
nest every nut mastery there are
some of these pslimpsests-i. e., re-
scraped parehments-on which bills
and cxpansss, or monastic and theo-
logical rubbish, covers something for
which scholars have perhaps long
been vainly searching. Such pa
Iimpsssts have hitherto been treated
with acids of various kinds 20 get rid
of the new ink, and then dipped in
solution of eannin to bring out, il
possible, the old writing. All this
washing, however, too often had the
effect Ct making the whole hopeless.
ly illegible; whereas photography
does away with the need OF it. In
the sun picture the effaced original
comes out often as clearly as that
which was written af;erward; and
then, of course, it is no very difficult
task to read between the lines But
this application of photography is
useful not to the scholar only, but 10
the statesman, or merchant, or spec
ial correspondent, or TO any one who
wants to send letters that nobody
else can read. If you write with
solution of sulpbate of guipine, the
paper will look like a blank sheet
over which fly has traced fow
very faint marks; you may safely
sehd it even by way of the Russian
headquarters. unlcss, indeed, therc
is photographer there who knows
the secret. In that case he has only
to take sun copy of your seemingly
blank sheet, and what you wrote be-
comes as legible as the old "sympa-
thetic ink" of our grandmo,hers used
to when held before the fire. Bank
ers, too, may sometimes find it con-
venient to have doubtful checks pho
However carefully the
amount may have been
washed out, the sun will bring it up
gain to tho confusion of the forger.
AS for doctors, it may be worth their
while now and then TO photograph
their patients when they suspect
there is any ernptive disease not yet
visible. Mr.. II. vogel. of Berlin,
cites the case of lady who had ol-
ways (as the phrase is) "taken WE'LL"
She "came out" one day all over lit
tie black spots. The photographer
was blamed--his chemicals must
have been bad, or the plate could not
have been properly cleaned. Two
days later, however, it became clear
that the lady had smallpox, in fact.
she died of it soon after. Yellow,
as every one knows. comes out black
in the sun picture, 80 her face must
have been covered with very faint
yellow spots before any eye could
trace the least mark upon the skin.