IMPROVEMENTS IN PORTABLE PHOTOGRAPHIC APPARATUS
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Edward Newton at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
22nd May 1867.-A communication from abroad by Henry Cook, of
the Chaussée d'Antin, Paris, in the Empire of France.
I, WILLIAM EDWARD NEWTON, of the Otfice for Patents, 66, Chancery
Lane, in the County of Middlesex, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN PORTABLE PHOTOGRAPHIC
APPARATUS," to be as follows:-
The photographic apparatus which forms the subject of the present Invention
has for its object the construction of a convenient form of portable apparatus for
taking views without the necessity of carrying about a cumbrous and unwieldy
quantity of apparatus.
The apparatus is composed of two main parts, consisting, firstly, of a circular
box, six inches in diameter and two and a half inches in thickness, constructed
to contain fifty or any other convenient number of prepared and sensitized
glasses, each 1 inches square; these glasses are brought by means of the
simple rotation of the case one after another, directly over a door which opens
and shuts automatically.
The second part of the Invention consists of the photographic apparatus or
camera itself, which forms the principal part of the Invention. This apparatus
is of the form, dimensions, and appearance of an ordinary opera glass. The
glass plates used in the camera are exquisitely sensitive and will keep so for

page_text: twelve months, and the images taken may be developed at any interval after
exposure. The two tubes of the opera glass are furnished with two lenses exactly
similar in focus; one of these serves to project the image to be taken on to the
ground focussing glass which occupies the large part of the tube, the other
to produce the image on the prepared glass plate which occupies a small
dark chamber formed in the opposite tube. The circular box in which are
arranged the prepared glass plates is pushed over an opening in this chamber
provided with appropriate grooves; the doors of the box and of the dark
chamber are simultaneously opened, and a prepared glass plate falls from the
box into the dark chamber. When the view has been taken the apparatus is
turned upside down, and the glass plate which has been exposed will fall back
into its place in the box, which is then removed. The door of this latter
closes, and a small movement to the right or left brings another prepared
glass plate over the door and the opening in the camera. As the place of
each prepared glass plate is numbered all danger of using a glass twice over
is avoided. The tube which contains the ground focussing glass is provided
with a magnifying power to facilitate the finding of the focus; that which
contains the dark chamber is provided with a spring and screw to hold the
prepared glass in its place; this tube is likewise furnished with a very con-
venient stop or blind, which when the instrument is fixed and the focus found
may be opened and closed according to the time of exposure. When all the
prepared glass plates in the box have been exposed they may be removed in
artificial light and placed in the supply box, from which an equivalent
number of fresh glasses may be taken; within the space or size therefore of
an opera glass, a drinking cup, and a pistol case for extra glasses, a man may take
and bring home with him two or three thousand views. If he be a photographer
he will develop the views himself, if not, he will give them to a professional
man, who for a trifling expense will complete and enlarge them for him. So
great is the facility of enlargement, and so perfect are the results, that it is quite
an undecided question whether it would not be wiser in all cases to adopt the
system of taking small views. A very perfect stand has been devised uniting
the requisite rigidity with great lightness; it is a simple socket and upright
post provided with an universal joint of great simplicity, which permits of the
rapid fixing and removal of the instrument.