The daily gazette., 1880-11-29
PHOTOGRAPHS.

How they Originated ana How the Old
Ones Look 20 the Modern Eyes.
Forty years ago the dim likeness of a
human face, mysteriously fixed upon a
plate Of FURNISHED silver by q process of
which the makers themselves UNDER
stood very little, and which was a SINH
lar wonderment to the world at large
was passed from hand to hand as a
scientific curiosity. One of the early
attempts at constructing an apparatus
that would yield picture by the effect
OF sunlight was cunning worker in sill,
yer named Woodwork, who was en-
ployed in the old Ames mandatory at
Chicopee, Mass, and bis own face was
one of those upon which some OF the
earliest experiments were made at that
place. 1t did not take long for the
camera to assume substantially its pres
ent shape, and soon the dogaIype man"
appeared with the marvellous invention
of the Frenchman, whose name it bore,
in every country village. He took q
room in the tavern at first, and hung his
samples in veneered mahogany frame at
the street door. Then followed the
daguerreotype car" for the artist was
still q peripatetic one, who made his
rounds of half o dozen towns in the
course of q year. But the process was
somewhat expensive-a single picture in
q plain case usually cost about three dol
lars and so somebody invented the
ambrotype," which cost less than half
as much and was not nearly half as
good. The impression was taken upon
prepared plate of glass instead of sill
yer. This led the way to taking the i'm
preston upon glass so prepared as to be
transparent, which could be used as a
negative" through which the sunlight
could produce no end of copies by fall
ing on prepared surface OF paper or
other material, thus making the modern
photograph" The great invention
was fully accomplished when the secret
OF indefinite production was once found
out.
1t does not take long for any sun pic
ture to grow quaint and fashioned.
With what horrible truthfulness it pre-
serves the oddities OF dress and orna-
ment! What woman does not "look
like fright" in her antiquated habili-
mentsP How strange her face looks in
all this odd ldisguiseP What man can
not find now, laid away in some old
drawer Of table or bureau, a daguerreo-
type of himself taken in the days of
his youthP How distinctly he remem-
bers how the little ova table stood be-
side him with its ornamental cover, and
how he held the book in his hand, and
how the "tongs" were pushed against
| the back of his head, and how he
was afraid to breathe or blink lest the
picture might be spoiled How, when
he went away from home, his mother
coveted that little embossed case, with
its lid held down by tiny brass hook,
wherein she could behold her own girl
ish eyes grown bright again, and his
own fathers mouth as it looked when
the smiles of youth had not yet
hardened into wrinkles, and where the
lineaments of all her boys ancestors
were somehow transformed into lines
| of beauty in that one image which she
could worship without charge OF
dolatryl Distinctly enough he remem-
bers how he showed the wondrous pro.
duction to his sisters, and listened to
their comments on the looks of his hair
| pnd collar and necktie, and how he
wished to hear, through them: of the
verdict which that vast and influential
body of mankind known as the girls"
| would pass upon it; and yet. as the old
| fellow with grizzled beard and bald
pate now looks through his glasses at
the beardless face which once belonged
to him, how inexpressibly immature
and vealy it seems to be. Ten to one he
is ashamed of it, and declares that he
never looked that way at all.
People who are accustomed to see the
photograph album" in every house
hardly realize what a change is in
dicated by that thick-leaved volume.
In the old time few wealthy families
had pictures in oil on canvas, and wan
dering artists sometimes went through
the country and made dubious portraits
on Eastwood boards for such as were
willing to pay a slight advance on the
COST OF the lumber, and occasionally
some extravagant gentleman had a
miniature or two printed on ivory and
set in gold vine under glass, and the
silhouette sometimes preserved an ac-
curate profile; but of not one person in
thousand was there any vestige of
likeness to show how he looked in life.
A mans child needed to be, indeed, the
Every picture of its father" tor il was
the only one he ever had. The results
of Photographic portraiture are not yet
old enough to possess any great historic
interest, but it opens curious field of
speculation to wonder what the people
In the year 1880 will think of US, as they
look at our queer effigies which have
been preserved in the closets of some
antiquarian collection Chicago Inter
Ocean.