21 



PAPER READ 



BY 



WILLIAM HENRY HAZARD, Esq., LL.B (Lond. 



ON 



DRY PLATE PHOTOGRAPHY, 

 28th MAY, 1884. 



The subject of my paper is at the present day a topic so 

 universally familiarized to all educated, (not to mention 

 scientific) men, that it seems to need a brief apology from 

 me as its introducer before I proceed to suggest the equally 

 brief, and (I fear) common-place considerations which I shall 

 venture to address to this Society. 



My motive in proposing dry plate photography for 

 discussion arises indeed from no intention of attempting- 

 to bring forward an original theory of its phenomena. 

 I can but hope that the numerous members of our Society 

 who are far more fully qualified than myself to state 

 authoritatively the scientific aspects of these phenomena, 

 will aid in rendering the occasion at once interesting 

 and serviceable to those among us who are amateur 

 photographers. 



I may therefore be allowed to refer to the numerous 

 dry plate processes, which, prior to the monopoly now 

 secured by gelatine as a vehicle for our silver pictures, 

 were at different times and in various localities in fashion. 

 These all employed the ingenious compound called collodion, 

 as the means of disseminating the sensitive salts throughout 

 that film spread upon a plate of glass, which has ever since 

 photography assumed its popular position in industry, been 

 the most important item in its apparatus. There were, 

 however, only two radically different methods in the pre- 

 paration of the film. The one, which was based upon the 



