The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-07-31
The MarveIs of Photography.

1t is not generally known that the
art of making sun pictures-photog-
raphy, in facts hundred years old.
Yet it is now put beyond question, by
documents and pictures which have
survived, that fifty years before
Daguerre and Niepce of France and
Fox Talbot of England invented the
art, photography was successfully prac-
ticed, passed away and was forgotten.
In other words, it was lost art, which
the experiments of the Frenchmen and
Englishman revived in 1898, acting in
dependently of each other and I'M
known to each other. Daguerre dis
covered the principle of the daguerreo-
type and Talbot species of sun print
ing on paper. So far as they were
concerned, their inventions were Just
as original as though they had never
been known to man before. Yet real
sun pictures on paper and on silver
plates have been brought to light which
have been in existence certainly more
than a century. The discovery con-
corning this forgotten era in photog-
raphy was made, according to Mr..
George G.. lockwood, in the winter of
1S63-'64 by the curator of the British
Museum of Patents and Inventions,
and the prints and plates, as we'll as
documentary evidence of a most con-
elusive kind, are in the possession of
the museum. The pictures which sur
vive are copies of Murillo, West and
others, and the color does not sink into
the paper, but may be wiped from the
surface by damp finger. Concerned
in the first experiments were such in
ventors as Wedgwood, Watt, and others
of the Lunar Society, the records of
which appertaining to photography are
preserved. 1t is considered that of the
results reached fifty years ago Da-
queries was by far the most valuable,
original and practicable; in fact, it is
doubted if the inventions of the other
two would ever have been of practical
value but for Daguerre's complete proc
ess. The fact may have been forgotten
that Professor Morse, the inventor of the
telegraph, brought the Daguerrean
process to this country first and had
the first gallery built in America,
" the first tabernacle for the sum-" as it
was called in the Western Hemisphere.
He was before the French Academy in
Paris with his telegraph at the same
time Daguerre was there with his sun
pictures, and they exchanged ideas, or
snapped " them, as the interchange
would have been called very generally
in America in those days. The devel-
opment in photography and the prog
ress it is making every day is shown
not by the latest tiash-light novelty so
much as in printing and engraving
Some of the wonders in these lines are
the reproduction of pictures for weekly
and monthly publications in a few
hours. Not only this, but the whole
have been entirely reproduced by pho
Biography, and at a price and with a
rapidty truly astounding. Mr.. Rock
wood mentions the case of a noted
English publisher who, learning that
one of his books had been repuhlished
in America, declared that the Ameri-
can edition was full of errors, knowing
that work of such magnitude could
not be put into type and printed hur-
riedly without errors. lie was greatly
confused when informed that the en-
tire volume, page after page, had been
photographed. The Encyclopedia
Britannica, which has just been pub
ished in New York, was reproduced
by the same art. Mr.. lockwood him.
self not long ago reproduced the whole
of the oratorio of " Elijah," music and
words, and the merit of the work is not
only in the cheapness of the reproduc-
ton. but in the freedom from all anX-
iety concerning its accuracy. OF course
no proof-reading is necessary, as the
| sun makes no mistakes Invention is
busy making extensive improvements
in the details of this printing and en-
craving branch of the art, so letter
press and pictures may be transferred
to paper on reels and printed from in
stead of plates with wonderful rapidity,
and of course with absolute accuracy