NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 183 



though not quite the natural ones, may be obtained, which is a decided 

 stej) in advance of what has been previously achieved. Practical Me- 

 chanic's Journal. 



PHOTO-SCULPTURE. 



Every now and then, says the London Art Journal, we hear of 

 " new discoveries " that turn out to be impossible, or are only the 

 result of confused reports. We arc generally, therefore, rather in- 

 elined to doubt than to believe. It is not surprising that the world 

 should have received with a certain degree of incredulity the announce- 

 ment that sculpture could be performed by means of photography. 

 However marvelous was the discovery of photography itself, we 

 could understand how the image of the camera obscura could leave 

 its impression upon a chemical surface susceptible of being affected 

 by the very light which makes it apparent to our senses. We were 

 afterwards enabled to understand, although with more difficulty, 

 how the stereoscope could raise two ilat photographic pictures into one, 

 presenting the illusion of relief. In fact, this seemed to us the only 

 sculpture, or at least the only illusion of sculpture, which might pos- 

 sibly be the result of a process of photography, and the word photo- 

 sculpture to us could not convey any other meaning ; for it seemed 

 utterly impossible that photography could transfer a block of clay or 

 any other materials employed by sculptors, into a real plastic form. 

 But however incredible this may appear on first consideration, we 

 latelv have had a tangible proof of the reality of a new and most ex- 



v < O / 



traordinary application of photography, in fact, of its capability of 

 imparting to a block of clay the transfer in relief of the photographic 



image. 



The inventor of this new process is M. Willeme of Paris, and his 

 establishment in that city, where the operation is practically carried 

 out, is constructed on a large piece of ground, and includes the 

 various reception rooms, galleries, and operating rooms necessary to 

 carry out a photographic business on an extensive scale. The part 

 which is devoted particularly to the photo-sculpture consists of a 

 large circular room about oO feet high and 40 feet in diameter, sur- 

 mounted with a cupola, all of glass, to admit the greatest possible 

 amount of light. All round the circular wall supporting the cupola 

 are, at equal intervals, 24 round holes of about three inches in 

 diameter, being the apertures of 24 canierse obscures placed be- 

 hind the wall in a kind of dark corridor surrounding the building; 

 for we have to explain that 24 photographs of the person sitting 

 in the center of the large round operating room are to be taken 

 at the same moment, in order to supply the modeling apparatus 

 with 24 different views of the person whose sculpture is to be ex- 

 ecuted. By a very simple and ingenious contrivance, the 24 camerse 

 obscurae, in each of which has been placed a prepared plate, are 

 open and shut at the same moment. The sitting is consequently 

 as short as if only one portrait was taken, and, after a few se- 

 conds in the required fixed position, the sitter is no more wanted. 

 His bust or his statuette will be achieved without his presence, 

 in another part of the establishment, where the modeling is per- 

 formed by the very ingenious process by which the block of clay is to 



