150 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



ing on wood and steel and copper, not to speak of ordinary por- 

 traiture, — that no modern art can be said more truly to live than 

 this. 



An index of patents relating to photography alone tells us 

 that down to the end of the year 1859 upwards of 190 separate 

 patents had been granted in England ; and since that period the 

 number has been enormously increased. This, however, gives a 

 very insufficient idea of the energy with which the wonderful art 

 is pursued ; for, in point of fact, the most important discoveries 

 in photography have not been protected by the patent laws. 

 I Thus, the collodion process — a process by which nine-tenths of 

 h the protographs in all countries are now produced — was all made 

 ' known freely to the public by its originator. So likewise the es- 

 sential principles of all the various carbon processes of printing 

 were announced by their discoverers without any attempt to secure 

 their rights by patent. So long ago as December, 1827, M. 

 Niepce, then living at Kew, submitted to the Royal Society some 

 pictures taken on silvered copper plates smeared with the bitumen 

 of Judasa, — a substance which is soluble in certain essential oils, 

 but not so after exposure to light. Specimens of his skill are in 

 existence as perfect in aj^pearance as on the day on which they 

 were produced. There is the beginning of the carbon process. 

 On the 29th of May, 1839, Mr. Mungo Ponten made a communica- 

 tion to the Royal Scottish Society of Arts to the effect that bichro- 

 mate of potash applied to paper in solution accepted a photo- 

 graphic image wiiich could not be removed by water, the portions 

 protected from the light being readily washed away. There is 

 a step in advance. In January of the last-mentioned year, M. 

 Daguerre in France, and Mr. Fox Talbot in England, had each 

 made public their independent discoveries of the daguerreotype 

 and the talbotype. - 



Judging by the manner in which the prizes were distributed, 

 the jurors attached less importance to the successful practice of 

 photography according to known methods than to the discovery 

 of new developments and applications of the art. They gave 

 their chief prizes, not to the men who produced the best portraits, 

 or the best landscapes, but to those who rendered such portraits 

 and landscajDes permanent. M. Lafon de Camersac received one 

 of the three gold medals which the jury awarded; but the business 

 which he pursues is not that of taking photographs, — it is that 

 of transferring photographs to enamel. An ordinary photograph 

 is apt to fade, and being upon paper it is easily destroyed ; but 

 M. de Camersac, by a process which he keeps secret, will trans- 

 fer it with the most perfect accuracy to enamel ; he will pass it 

 through the fire, and return the picture to you vitrified. He has 

 been working at this process of vitrification since 1851, and year 

 by 3'ear since then has made such steady progress, and met with 

 such success, that now he boasts of having furnished the public 

 with no less than 15,000 enamels. These indestructible enamels 

 can be made of any size. They do not cost nmch, and they tire 

 executed with rare taste and fidelity. The result is most valuable, 

 for there is no other method of rendering photographic pictures 



