nN 
* 
Miscellanies. | 169 
MISCELLANIES., 
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 
1. Pictorial delineations by light; solar, lunar, stellar, and artificial, 
called Photogenic and the art Photography. 
nark.—The great interest excited by this subject induces us to post- 
Pone the greater part of the miscellany which we had prepared and even 
set up for the present number, that we may make room for general 
Rotices from foreign Journals—detailing the history of the processes as 
far as known, and the most perfect state of the art, as far as it has gone. 
I. Photogenic Drawings.* 
by the publication of a series of experiments made by our countryman 
Mr, Talbot, directed towards the same object, and producing nearly simi- 
lar results, In describing this interesting invention it will be well to 
ommence with the first discoveries made by Mr. Wedgwood about the 
Year 1800, and afterwards extended by Sir Humphry Davy. ase 
_ The attention of these two eminent chemists was directed to the sub- 
ect by the extraordinary effect produced by light upon the nitrate of silver, 
Which led them to hope that the purposes of the artist might be assisted 
by the Susceptibility of the metallic oxide. The first experiment was 
made by Mr. Wedgwood for the purpose of copying paintings upon glass, 
and was eminently successful ; the copy obtained possessing all the fig- 
utes of the original, in their native shades and colors ;.it was also in a 
high degree permanent, so long as it was preserved from the action of the 
light, The same gentleman discovered that the shadow of an opaque ob- 
Jct thrown npon the paper was copied in outline with great correctness ; 
ut though both these celebrated chemists were constant and persevering 
their endeavors to render the drawing permanent, they were entirely 
uasuccessfal ; the lighter shades darkening by exposures and thus oblit- 
“rating the impression, eet : 
Their failure in this important object was published with their expert- 
ments in the Philosophical Transactions, and both having given up the 
attempt, their discoveries have since remained unimproved. But in the 
meanwhile M, Daguerre, it appears, struck by some hints he had received 
ma friend, has steadily pursued his experiments for the last twenty 
21 ep eae ae 
* Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 83. 
Vol. *xxv1, No. 1.—July, 1839, bis. a 
