116 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



those recently discovered ; and he got up a petition, signed by a num- 

 ber of artists, and presented either to or through the Lunar Society, 

 entreating that the manufacture of these pictures might be stayed, as 

 it would inevitably ruin the picture trade. A sort of foreman of Boul- 

 ton's, named Edginton, appears to have superintended the production 

 of these pictures, if he did not actually discover the process by which 

 the transfer to paper was done. Several of his letters are extant re- 

 ferring to the subsequent coloring which some of the pictures under- 

 went ; none of them, however, afford any clew as to the original method 

 of their production. But a little later, and after the alarm was taken 

 by the artists, we find a talk of granting Edginton a government pen- 

 sion. This fell through because of a curious autograph letter of Mat- 

 thew Boulton's which has been fortunately found. In this letter, offi- 

 cially addressed to the Minister, he claims for himself the discovery of 

 the process on account of which Edginton's annuity had been contem- 

 plated ; he intimates his knowledge that the grant was only intended 

 to insure the discontinuance of the process, suggests that he could ar- 

 range this in a much more certain way, and concludes his letter with 

 a strong hint that he is open- to be dealt with. Whatever ensued as 

 the result of this letter, it seems very clear that the production of the 

 pictures was thenceforward discontinued. 



Here the evidence comes to an end, so far as regards these curious 

 paper pictures, and the silvered plates which the highest authorities re- 

 fer to about the year 1791. In this same year, Thomas Wedgwood, 

 son of the famous potter, was certainly at work on photography, as is 

 shown by his bills and orders for apparatus and chemicals. At the 

 meeting of the Photographic Society there was exhibited, side by side 

 with the above-mentioned metal plates, a photograph of a neatly-laid 

 breakfast-table taken upon paper by Wedgwood, and the information 

 about it tended to the conclusion that it also was done in the year 

 1791. 



Thus far, we have written the history of this curious discovery in ac- 

 cordance with the evidence laid before the Photographic Society ; but 

 still there are many links wanting before it can be taken as proved that 

 the pictures found at Soho were produced by photography. If it shall 

 be shown that they were so produced, then it will also be established 

 that at that time photographic feats were done which we cannot nowa- 

 days accomplish. For it has been proved by chemical analysis that 

 these pictures do not contain a trace of silver, and must therefore, if of 

 photographic origin, have been produced by some process that has 

 been lost to us. That an art promising such great results should have 

 been suffered to die out, is in itself curious in these days of diffusion of 

 knowledge ; but still more remarkable is the double coincidence ex- 

 isting between the independently produced metal and paper photo- 

 graphs of Boulton and Wedgwood in 1791, and of Daguerre and Fox 

 Talbot in 1839. 



LUNAR PHOTOGRAPHS. 



At a recent meeting of the New York Photographic Society, Octo- 

 ber, 1863, Dr. Henry Draper gave an account of some extensive ar- 

 rangements made by him for the photographic delineation of celestial 

 objects, and of the results he had already attained to in this depart- 



