Proceedings. i 5 1 



copper by voltaic electricity. This was the beg-inning of 

 electro-plating, of which art Mr. Dancer was really the 

 inventor, though others have taken the credit of it. Among 

 other improvements of batteries made by Mr. Dancer there 

 was the introduction of crimped or corrugated plates, so as 

 to give a larger acting surface — a device which has been 

 the subject of recent patents by some who know nothing 

 of Mr. Dancer's having forestalled them by half a century. 

 In 1839 he introduced photography to Liverpool, working 

 Daguerre's process, and in 1841 he was the first to do the 

 same for Manchester, which had not yet seen a photographic 

 camera. In the same year he commenced microscopic 

 photography on Daguerrotype plates, and this wonderful 

 art he perfected in 1852, when the introduction of the collo- 

 dion process much simplified this and every other photo- 

 graphic process. These tiny examples of photography 

 excited the warmest admiration and commendation of Sir 

 David Brewster and other distinguished men. Mr. Dancer's 

 diffidence prevented him from claiming for himself in this 

 as in other discoveries the acknowledgment that was his due. 

 The invention of micro-photographs was claimed elsewhere, 

 but after a full inquiry by Mr. Joseph Sidebotham, Mr. 

 Edward W. Binney, and the Manchester Photographic 

 Society, Mr. Dancer's claim was allowed. In his record Mr. 

 Sidebotham wrote in 1859 : " Mr. Dancer's modesty will not 

 allow him to speak of his own discoveries, but I am sure you 

 all join in the annoyance I have felt in seeing persons coolly 

 claim as their own nezv discoveries what our respected 

 townsman has accomplished so many years ago." In 1853 

 Mr. Dancer invented the twin-lens stereoscopic camera ; 

 that is, a camera with two lenses placed side by side, at a 

 short distance apart. Before Mr. Dancer took the matter 

 in hand photographs for the stereoscope were taken with a 

 single camera, which was moved for the second picture, and 

 operators could not agree as to the proper amount of 



