THE ESSEX FIELD CLUI3. 43 



Meldola, for the light so caught it that it made the water look bright ; whereas when 

 he saw it some years ago it was as black as ink ; he hoped that it was better now. 

 Mr. Andrew Johnston (Chairman of the Essex County Council), in seconding 

 the vote of thanks, said that about 1839 or 1840 he became the possessor of two of 

 the earlier photographs ; one was a portrait of the Pope, and the other a picture of St. 

 Peter's, at Rome. In course of years they grew dusty ; he removed the cover glass 

 from one, rubbed off the dust, and at the same time wiped the picture clean off the 

 plate. The other he presented to a society which preserves ancient photographs. 



Mr. John Spiller thought that Prof. Meldola's programme might have been 

 extended to photomicrograph}'', and to some other branches. The use of photo- 

 graphy at solar eclipses might have been noticed. He possessed a photograph of 

 the corona, taken during one of the early eclipses by Lord Lindsay, who had 

 given it to him. 



The Rev. Mr. Howell had heard that small cameras could be used for some 

 kind of stellar research. Was that so ? He believed that if it were pointed to 

 the north, the stars nearest the pole would describe circular tracks on a sensitive 

 plate during long exposures, and that the more the camera was pointed towards 

 the south, the more did the tracks of the stars approximate on the plate to a 

 straight line. Last year a man taking a shot with a hand camera at the stars was 

 said to have accidentally photographed a meteor as well. 



Mr. F. H. Varle}^ C.E., had hoped that when Prof. Meldola was dealing with 

 interference phenomena, he would have spoken of the photographing of colours, 

 by Prof. Lippmann's process, especially as the lecturer had one of those photo- 

 graphs in his possession. He should also have liked to have heard something of 

 the method of building up pictures resembling the tints of Nature, by the three 

 colour-processes. 



Mr. A. P. Wire called attention to a suggestion made in " Photography " some 

 time ago that ad\antage to all concerned might be gained if the local photo- 

 graphic societies in Essex and the Essex Field Club were to work together in 

 obtaining faithful photographs of natural phenomena and old buildings, etc., 

 for permanent registration. 



yir. W. A. Longmore, President of the Walthamstow Literary and Scientific 

 Institution, spoke of the interest with which he had listened to the lecture, and 

 hoped that more meetings of the kind might be held in Walthamstow. 



Prof. Meldola, in reply, said that the British Association Committee recom- 

 mended the use of orthochromalic plates in geological photography, as furnishing 

 much more striking and valuable pictures than ordinary plates. In reply to Mr. 

 HowelTs remarks, he had never seen photographs of stars taken by an ordinar}^ 

 camera, and he thought that nothing would be gained by obtaining streaks of 

 light described by images of their paths across the plate. In the time at his dis- 

 posal it was clearly impossible to cover the whole ground of the scientific uses 

 of photograph}', hence the omissions which had been mentioned by some of the 

 speakers. As to Mr. Varley's criticism there was no doubt, he said, that Prof. 

 Lippmann's method was the greatest advance which has ever been made in the 

 photographing of colours, and he had received from him a very beautiful speci- 

 men of the solar spectrum. He had lent it, and was therefore unable to bring it 

 to the meeting. Moreover, it would have been difficult to arrange the lantern to 

 project the image by reflected light, which was the way the Lippmann images 

 must be viewed. 



The meeting then resolved itself into the usual conversazione, light refresh- 

 ments being served in an adjoining room. 



