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Kansas Academy of Science. 



hesitated no longer, but sent a letter asking for unmounted photo- 

 graphs for Christmas gifts to friends. A prompt response came, 

 with a package of these wonderful pictures to choose from. They 

 were so singularly exact in detail, so clear and sharp in outline, 

 and, withal, so beautiful, that I at once wished their merit might 

 be brought to the attention of the Academy of Science, as the 

 highest expression yet reached in our state of the photographic 

 art beautiful. Miss McColm kindly consenting to furnish me with 

 specimens and a few notes of their work, I am therefore enabled to 

 have the honor of presenting them to you to-day. 



YOUNG MOURNING-DOVES. 



Wishing to make a collection of pictures of out-of-door subjects, 

 Miss McColm and her brother purchased a camera in 1899. So 

 ignorant were they of photographic art that they supposed success 

 in negative making depended wholly upon development. A few 

 plates were exposed in Topeka on a dull November day, immediately 

 after the purchase of the camera. They were taken to a photog- 

 rapher to be developed, as they took their first lesson in develop- 

 ment. "All were badly undertimed exposures; so we had only 

 spoiled plates instead of negatives," she says. Aside from this one 

 lesson, all their knowledge of picture making has been gained from 



